Benefit cap - what amount? 

Hi All,

We have a client, on UC and subject to the benefit cap.

His total UC would be £3,246.95, and the max amount under the cap is £1916.67 – so cap applied at £1330.28.

However, both TurntoUs and Entitled state that the cap amount should be £861.88?

So there is a difference of £468.40

This is a mixed age couple, with 3 dep children, no health problems and rent within LHA limit. The only household income is CB and SRP, with the SRP being £680.46.

Anybody agree with the calculators and if so, why, as it is not clear what we are missing? 

Or are UC correct?

Thanks in advance.

Benefit cap maximum amount of £1916.67 looks correct to me (inside Greater London).

However Child Benefit is within the benefit cap and needs to be taken into account, which your second paragrpaph doesn’t do.

So maximum UC is £3,246.95 less the pension = UC amount (before cap) £2566.49.
UC £2566.49 plus CB £212.12 = £2,778.61
Benefit cap reduction is £2,778.61 - £1,916.67 = £861.94 (which allowing for rounding errors is what the calculators show).

UC payable is £1,704.55.

Ian,

Thanks for that

But we had thought of that and CB, for 3 kids is only £212.00 per month the difference here is £468.40 between the actual capped amount and the amount that should be capped according to both calculators.

We also checked the LHA rate to see and that has also been correctly assessed

Just seems odd that both calculators would give the same, but different out come to what UC are applying.

Cheers

This might be one of those posts where all the people outside London are amazed at London rents.

I think Ian is right about the amount of UC. I make it just over £1700. I think the confusion may be over what we mean by the cap amount - are we talking about the total excess?

I take it your UC maximum is before deducting the pension income, so actual UC award would be £2566.49? So total bens would be £2566.49 + £212.12 (CHB) = £2778.61. So the excess amount is the difference between that and the cap amount £1,916.67, so that’s £861.94 (although I did some of the sums in my head, so I might be wrong).

I was thinking about it and working through properly and updated my earlier post without realising you had responded. Have now included the calculation in my earlier (edited post).

And in reply to Timothy, yes my first reaction was indeed ‘how can the maximum UC entitlement be that high?’!

Thank you both - that now makes sense - and UC need to adjust their assessment.

I don’t have much to do with calculations - so this helpful stuff.

Have a great weekend!