UC transitional element when a 19-year-old is a qualifying young person for CTC but not for UC

You can use this template if all the following apply:

• Your client transferred from CTC to UC under the managed migration process.
• Your client is worse off immediately after managed migration to UC because:
  • on the migration day (the day prior to the first day of the UC award), they had a 19-year-old child who counted as a ‘qualifying young person' for CTC and for whom they were getting a child element in their CTC
  • on the migration day the 19-year-old did not count as a qualifying young person for UC (because it fell on or after 1 September following the child’s 19th birthday)
  • the DWP included a child element for the 19-year-old in your client’s ‘indicative UC amount’ when calculating their entitlement to the transitional element
  • as a result, the transitional element the DWP calculated they were entitled to was lower than it would have been had the child element not been included in their indicative UC amount

The legal arguments in this template include:

• From 1 September following a young person’s 19th birthday they cannot count as a qualifying young person for UC purposes and therefore a claimant’s UC maximum amount cannot include a child element for them: Reg 2 Universal Credit (Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2014 (‘TP Regs’) and reg 5 Universal Credit Regulations 2013 (‘UC Regs’).
• A 19-year-old can continue to count as a qualifying young person for CTC up to their 20th birthday in certain circumstances.
• Regulation 52 TP Regs provides that a transitional element is included in the calculation of a claimant’s UC award if their ‘total legacy amount’ (the amount determined in accordance with reg 53 TP Regs) is greater than their ‘indicative UC amount’ (the amount determined in accordance with reg 54).
• Reg 54 TP Regs provides that the indicative UC amount is the amount of UC a claimant would be entitled to on migration day (as defined by reg 49 TP Regs) subject to certain assumptions.
• Reg. 54(2)(a) TP Regs specifies one such assumption, which is that ‘if the claimant is entitled to an award of child tax credit, the claimant is responsible for any child or qualifying young person in respect of whom the individual element of child tax credit is payable’
• ‘Qualifying young person’ in reg 54(2)(a) should be defined in accordance with reg 2 TP Regs and reg 5 UC Regs and not by its definition for CTC.
• On the claimant’s migration day, their 19-year-old child was not a qualifying young person for UC purposes, as the day fell on or after 1 September following their child’s 19th birthday, but they were a qualifying young person for CTC purposes.
• In these circumstances, the DWP is therefore incorrect to include a child element for the claimant’s 19-year-old within the indicative UC amount.

To complete this template you need the following information.

Information about your client

• name
• address
• national insurance number

Background facts

• The name of your client's 19-year-old child
• The 19-year-old's date of birth
• The date when the 19-year-old enrolled on the course of education they were on when your client claimed UC
• The legacy benefits your client was receiving immediately before their managed migration to UC
• The date your client claimed UC
• The date your client requested a mandatory reconsideration of the decision on their claim for UC
• The date your client submitted the appeal

Information about the decision(s)

• The date the migration notice was sent to your client
• The 'deadline day' on the migration notice
• The date of the DWP's decision to award/not award UC
• If UC was awarded, whether it included a transitional element
• The date of the mandatory reconsideration notice they received after requesting a mandatory reconsideration of the DWP's decision