Category Archives: benefits

Shropshire council ‘failed’ to pay carer who quit job to support wife

January 16, 2014   benefits, Carers, mental health

Shropshire Council has failed to pay £60,000 to a man forced to quit his job to care for his wife, a government watchdog has said.

The payment was one of four recommendations made by the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO), which criticised the authority in May for failing to properly support the man.

Now it has released a further report recommending the cash is handed over.

The BBC has asked Shropshire Council for a response.

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Bedroom tax loophole could exempt 40,000 wrongly identified as liable

January 10, 2014   benefits, Carers, ukcuts

Housing benefit experts condemn ‘shambles’ as it emerges that DWP oversight could mean some actually profit from blunder

, and The Guardian,

Social housing bedroom tax

The bedroom tax loophole applies to working-age social housing tenants who are entitled to housing benefit. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

Thousands of people have been wrongly identified as liable for the bedroom tax, including some who now face eviction or have been forced to move to a smaller property, as a result of an error by Department of Work and Pensions.

Housing experts believe as many as 40,000 people could be affected by the mistake. The DWP says it believes only a “small number” of tenants are affected, which it estimates number 5,000.

All could be eligible for refunds worth on average at least £640 per claimant and millions in aggregate.

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Bedroom tax hits 60,000 families with carers

December 31, 2013   Alzheimer’s, benefits, Carers, Older care, ukcuts

About 60,000 families living in council homes where there is someone caring for an elderly or disabled relative have been caught out by the “bedroom tax”

Andy McSmith Author Biography Tuesday 31 December 2013

Answering a written question in the Commons, the Employment minister, Esther McVie, revealed: “Around 60,000 households affected by the removal of the spare room subsidy policy are in receipt of carer’s allowance or have an underlying entitlement to carer’s allowance.

The revelation follows a letter from the Disability Benefits Consortium, which represents 50 charities, pleading for disabled people and their carers to be exempt from the removal of the spare room subsidy

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