This blog explores some of the pros and cons of getting short-term assistance while challenging a determination to reduce or remove an award of adult disability payment (ADP) or child disability payment (CDP). Advisers should be aware that some people can be worse off in the long run.
It’s right that benefits are uprated as usual but this should never have been in doubt and legislation mandating inflationary increases is needed as a basic protection for living standards. Struggling families have been worrying themselves sick for months about whether an unmanageable income cut was coming in order to provide the government with a rabbit-out-of-the-hat moment.
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.
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.
What impact is the cost of living crisis having on families' abilities to keep warm this winter? Parents and carers on a low income who are part of Changing Realities have shared their experiences.