Online training, benefits for students over the summer, and more

Students and benefits online training and e-learning, universal credit managed migration and new caselaw

Students and benefits training and factsheets, the NEW carer support payment, universal credit managed migration for students and Scottish Government student funding announcement.

March's eBulletin is about problems with the UC child element for multiple children.

July's eBulletin is about the LCWRA element being added to UC from the wrong date.

The issue raised by this case in the Court of Appeal is whether the UK’s Immigration (EEA) Regulations 2006 must be read pursuant to EU law as providing a right to reside in the UK not only to EEA children in education whose parents have been employed persons, but also to those whose parents have been ¬self-employed persons. Regretfully the Court of Appeal has decided that there is no such requirement and an application for permission to appeal to the Supreme Court has been refused.

On 29 March 2018, CPAG issued judicial review proceedings challenging the decision of the DWP to limit backdated payments to those disabled people who had been underpaid when they transferred from incapacity benefit (‘IB’) to employment and support allowance (‘ESA’) to a 21 October 2014 date.

In August 2018, the Supreme Court handed down its judgment that denying bereavement benefits to unmarried, cohabiting partners with children is incompatible with human rights law. Separately, CPAG is representing a Muslim woman with two young children who was also denied WPA following the sudden death of her partner with whom she had been through an Islamic marriage ceremony and believed herself to be lawfully married.

This appeal concerns the application of the ‘past presence’ test that requires disability benefit claimants to be resident in Great Britain for 104 weeks out of the 156 weeks prior to the claim. However, for claimants to whom an EU regulation applies, the past presence test is disapplied if they can establish a genuine and sufficient link to the UK social security system.

This case concerned a judicial review challenging the revised, lower benefit cap, introduced in 2016. The appeal was brought on behalf of two single mothers who are affected by the cap due to their caring responsibilities. One of the claimants has children with significant health needs while the other has previously fled domestic violence. The appeal in this case was heard on 17-19 July 2018 by a 7 judge panel of the Supreme Court alongside that of R (DA and Others) v SSWP. Judgment was given on 15 May 2019 finding that cap did not unlawfully discriminate against lone parents with children under 5 and their children.