Redundancy payment and Carer's allowance.

[GeorgeT]

Hi,

I wonder if anyone can help?. My wife works ten hours a week and is being made redundant. She will received approximately £2,450 redundancy after twelve years service, she is serving her redundancy so no severance payment is involved. Will she lose her carer's allowance ?. She is thinking off leaving her job over it and losing her £2,450 redundancy in order to keep her carer's allowance. The DHSS told her she would lose her carer's allowance (is this correct) as its classed as income!!!. Thanks for any help you may give me.

[no1mum]

iya and a warm welcome to the forum, I've moved your post over to new members section(as it's your first post).
http://www.carersuk.org/help-and-advice/help-with-money
There's some info here on our main pages, also the helpline number, it would be worth you calling the helpline or sending them an email and they should be able to give you the advice needed.

[susieq]

I'm pretty sure that redundancy payments are not classified as income - however payments in lieu of notice are, so perhaps whomever you were talking to at the DHSS have got their wires crossed.

We all know the £100 earnings limit for claiming CA - but involuntary redundancy payments are not 'earnings' per se - they are given in recognition of previous service

I know when I've been made redundant in the past (3 times in my working lifetime) I've always declared the redundancy payment but I never had to wait for that to run out before being able to claim unemployment benefit. Of course the rules may have changed in the last few years so it would be best to talk to someone with the right expertise.

[GeorgeT]

"I've moved your post over to new members section(as it's your first post)."

Sorry about that, its confusing to say the least! (for me), I saw what you are saying, I went by the e-mail I was sent in the "now activated your account" e-mail, and it said..."The best way to introduce yourself is by posting in the New members start here section of the forum.". I didn`t want to introduce myself as this may mean that I have to give personal details, or be asked personal details of myself or my wife!. Didn`t want to go off thread, so thought "General Discussion" thread the best place to post it!.

My wife phoned the "helpline number" of Carers UK but all they can tell us is they "THINK" it won`t affect my wife`s carer's allowance. Seems no one can answer our question with a definitive answer!!!, even the experts...

[no1mum]

What if I've been made redundant - how does this affect carer's allowance?

If you've been made redundant and claim carer's allowance any final earnings you receive will generally not affect your entitlement. As long as your claim for carer's allowance begins after employment ends, the following are disregarded: final wages, holiday pay, pay in lieu of notice, statutory and contractual redundancy pay.

If you are already claiming carer's allowance then any final earnings you receive when you stop working will not be disregarded and will generally count for the number of weeks that the payment covers.

I found this info by searching the web, but how accurate it is I don't know.

[GeorgeT]

Thanks for your efforts no1mum.

As for "accurate" it does`nt start to come into it!. It says "generally" too many times to get any "accurate" idea. My wife has not yet ended her employment and already gets carer's allowance. As I said above all she is getting is her redundancy payment, they are making her work her notice so no severance payment or holiday payments are involved, just the redundancy payment. Asking the DHSS is a waste of time, out of the many number of times we have rang them over the years we have only once got someone nice on the other end!!!.

Also thanks to everyone else who posts on this thread. At least we have opened up a thread others may like to know about ?.

[GeorgeT]

Firstly, thanks for the welcome.

"i am surprised that the advice line here did not answer the question satisfactorily."

I am not surprised that they could`nt answer the question!, it seems its never been brought up before that I can find. The fear here is the DWP/DHSS may comeback to you at some future date and demand all or part of your carer's allowance/insurance stamp payments back!!!, or worse take you to court!!!. As they say..."Ignorance is no defence when it comes to the law". I should add that in my wife`s case it was compulsory redundancy, she can`t find another job at the moment and maybe unemployed for awhile, or the way things are a long while!.

[Scally]

GeorgeT, the answer is that it does not count as earned income, so is non-declarable for CA purposes. It may surprise some carers to know that you could retire early on a pension of £500,000 a year, own five or six fancy properties across the world and fly between them with a Private Jet, keep a few mistresses in fancy apartments on the Champs Elysee, yet still claim Carers Allowance, as long as you dont earn anything above £100 per week (after various deducations such as pension contribs etc) from a paid job.

[charles47]

Well, that's interesting. There is nothing in the Carers Allowance regulations for this. Not a word.

I'd say that the best way forward is to treat this as the number of weeks' pay received. After all, that is how it is calculated. Should then turn out as no problem at all, as your wife's pay is under £100 net anyway. How can they reasonably take it any other way?

[bowlingbun]

I would suggest that you ring ACAS. They are experts on redundancy and all the implications of it. I used them some years ago on another issue and was very impressed about the way they could state chapter and verse of regulations, and I'm not easily impressed!! Your wife needs to keep working her time out, and getting the redundancy payment. Whatever happens she won't be worse off by doing this.