A change is coming to child benefit. This Saturday, more families will become eligible as the earnings threshold at which you start losing child benefit increases. The government has finally recognised that ‘the way we treat child benefit in the tax system is confusing and unfair’ and proposed two changes to try to simplify it. It’s ironic that this confusion and unfairness was introduced by the government in the first place.
Court of Appeal upholds decision that universal credit payments can be backdated on revision, but claimants risk still being thwarted by DWP IT design flaws and those subject to managed migration face ‘double whammy’ loss of transitional protections and backdated payments.
Legal work can be a marathon. I’m a solicitor at CPAG, and we take on legal action to protect and defend families’ rights. Last week, nearly two years after the first judgment in one of our cases, we had confirmation that it won’t go any further – we have definitively won!
Our interviews show that claimants did not have the information they needed or wanted to understand how moving to UC would affect them. Such misinformation and misunderstanding are likely to be reasons some people are not moving to UC despite having a strong financial incentive to do so.
A landmark ruling in the Court of Appeal has held that the government is required to consider the fundamental rights of EU citizens and their families residing in the UK, including their right to live in dignified conditions, before refusing universal credit support.
Digital aspects of universal credit (UC) routinely lead to wrong amounts being awarded to claimants – often the most vulnerable - and to breaches of rule-of-law principles, new Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) research finds.
More than 8,500 individuals and organisations gave evidence to the latest Work and Pensions Committee inquiry into benefit assessments. Carri Swann considers the government’s response.
This research study examines the extent to which universal credit adheres to the rule of law principles of transparency, procedural fairness and lawfulness.
The Court of Appeal has ruled in favour of two universal credit claimants who brought judicial reviews against the DWP after waiting months for their first payments of UC due to them not having a national insurance number at the point they claimed the benefit, despite DWP having verified their identity and determined they were eligible for UC.
An EU citizen (WV) who is a carer for his severely disabled British wife (J) has – with support from Child Poverty Action Group - won a legal battle with the DWP after a Tribunal found the couple were wrongly underpaid universal credit for nearly 2 years while he had pre-settled status, since the couple’s joint claim was refused by the DWP in 2020.