Students and benefits eBulletin - December 2023

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

In this issue

Students and benefits training courses

We are delivering two training courses via Zoom on benefits for students in the next few months. These are:

  • Students and benefits – eligibility course on 29 & 30 January 2024 (two half-days). This course will cover all the main benefits that students might get - including universal credit, and devolved benefits such as the new carer support payment. It will also cover which students can remain on legacy benefits. This is a standard level course for people with some knowledge of the benefits system.
  • Universal credit and students course on 12 & 13 March 2024 (two half-days). This course will give you a good overview of the rules regarding student eligibility for universal credit, including the impact of Scottish student funding. It will also cover information about the recently started managed migration to universal credit in Scotland, and the special student rules that may apply.  

We can also deliver training via Zoom or Teams (in-person training requests can also be considered) for you and your colleagues ‘in–house’ – ie, to up to 15 staff members from your organisation/partner organisations. See our CPAG students and benefits project flyer here for the available courses.

Students and benefits eLearning

Our free eLearning course, Scottish student income and universal credit, helps you understand the impact of Scottish student loans and grants on universal credit. It should take around 30-45 minutes to complete. Visit the eLearning zone to view and take part. It is updated for the 2023-24 academic year.

Why not do one of our other eLearning courses while you are there?

Students and benefits factsheets updated

There are five updated students and benefits factsheets (dated September or October 2023) on the CPAG in Scotland website – go to Students and benefits project Scotland and click on factsheets. This includes updated factsheets on benefits for care-experienced students, benefits for disabled students, and young people in further education or training.

NEW carer support payment

A new benefit, called carer support payment, was introduced in parts of Scotland on 20 November 2023. The rules are set out in the Carer’s Assistance (Carer Support Payment) (Scotland) Regulations 2023, and the benefit replaces carer's allowance in Scotland. Many of the rules are the same as carer's allowance, but there are some differences, especially regarding student entitlement.

At the moment you can only make a claim for carer support payment if you live in Dundee, Perth and Kinross or the Western Isles. You must be caring for someone in receipt of a ‘qualifying benefit’ (such as adult disability payment or personal independence payment daily living component), and providing at least 35 hours care per week. You can't get carer support payment if you earn over £139 a week net.

Full time students can’t get carer's allowance. But many student carers will be eligible for carer support payment. The student carers who are eligible for carer support payment are:

  • full-time student carers aged 20 or over; or
  • full-time advanced / higher education students of any age (ie, on an HNC course or above); or
  • part-time students at any level

Students aged 16-19 on a non-advanced / further education course of ‘full-time education’ or approved training (ie, ‘No one left behind’ provision) are not eligible.

The definition of ‘full-time education’ for carer support payment is:

‘education undertaken in pursuit of a course, where the average time spent during term time in receiving tuition, engaging in practical work, or supervised study, or taking examinations exceeds 21 hours per week, and in calculating the time spent in pursuit of the course, no account is taken of time occupied by meal breaks or spent on unsupervised study.’

Student carers who meet all the criteria and live in one of the local authorities where carer support payment is rolled out should be encouraged to apply. In particular, any students whose carer's allowance stopped when they started studying should check whether they are eligible for carer support payment.

Weekly entitlement is currently £76.75 per week. In addition, carers who get carer support payment on specific dates are entitled to a carer’s allowance supplement, paid twice per year in a lump sum (£270.50 twice a year in 2023). Students who get carer support payment will not have this income (or the carer’s allowance supplement) taken into account when assessing them for a further education bursary or student loan.

Carer support payment can be claimed online at mygov.scot/carer-support-payment/how-to-apply, by phone on 0800 182 2222, or by a paper or online interactive application form.

Note: you cannot get carer support payment if you are entitled to the carer element of universal credit in respect of a different cared-for person, carer’s allowance, or a young carer grant (but you are eligible if you have previously had a young carer grant). You also cannot get carer support payment if someone else gets it, carer’s allowance or the carer element of universal credit in respect of the same cared-for person. Getting carer support payment may affect the benefits of an adult you care for, so seek advice first.

Read CPAG in Scotland’s information on carer support payment here.

Universal credit managed migration for students

Managed migration extended to some parts of Scotland in Autumn 2023, and will gradually roll out to all areas by around March 2024. Those only on child tax credit (CTC) and/or working tax credit (WTC) are first to move, and their migration to universal credit (UC) is expected to be completed by April 2024. Then those on tax credits together with other legacy benefits will be migrated. Finally, those on income-related ESA only or with housing benefit are to be migrated – expected to start in 2028/29.

Special rules allow students who claim UC via managed migration to get UC even if they don’t fit the usual UC rules. This is in regulation 60 of the Universal Credit (Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2014. These special rules apply if you're undertaking a full-time course, and refer back to part of the definition of who is 'receiving education' in the UC Regulations 2013, regulation 12(2). This definition applies to people undertaking a full-time course of advanced education, or undertaking any other full-time course of study or training for which a student loan or grant is provided for maintenance. So, a single student in low paid work and on WTC wouldn’t usually get UC, but will get UC if they are migrated via managed migration to UC while on a full-time advanced course, or a full-time further education course for which they get a further education bursary maintenance allowance. This protection is lost altogether in certain circumstances eg, if you form a couple or separate.

Transitional protection means that even those with substantial amounts of student income may still qualify for UC. People moving to UC via managed migration may be entitled to transitional protection if the total amount of UC that they would be entitled to at the point of transfer would be less than the total amount of legacy benefits that they were entitled to. Timing of the claim for UC may be important in some cases, for example if there are forthcoming changes.

Read CPAG’s latest briefing on managed migration to UC.

Advisers can contact our advice line for advice in any such cases: phone CPAG in Scotland's advice line for advisers and frontline staff on 0141 552 0552. The advice line is available Monday –Thursday 10am – 4pm and Fridays 10am - 12 noon. You can also email your enquiries to [email protected]

STOP PRESS Scottish Government student funding announcement 

Scottish Government have announced that from the academic year 2024/25 higher education student funding will increase by £2,400, in the form of a special support loan. Crucially, this special support loan will be ignored for DWP means-tested benefits such as universal credit (because it is specifically for travel, childcare and study costs). This means that this extra student funding will not reduce student’s means-tested benefits. We'll have more about this in forthcoming student and benefits e-bulletins.

Read the Scottish Government announcement here.