Commitments while waiting for PIP decision

Pwisbey

Hi can anyone help with this please

If a person is claiming universal credit, and they are caring for a person for 35 hours a week and that person they are caring for is waiting for a decision on a PIP application, should their claimant commitments be reduced? Is it just the work coach's discretion? 

And also, when do you claim carers allowance, before or after the PIP decision? Because I'm wondering if the CA could be backdated to the date PIP was first claimed otherwise it's unfair to people when a PIP decision takes longer than someone else's. 

Thanks for your help! 

poppy123456

You can't claim carers element unless there's a PIP daily living award so commiments will not reflect that until you claim carers element.

You can't claim Carers allowance until there's a PIP daily living award. If there's an award and you claim it then it can be backdated to the start of the PIP award (providing you claim within 3 months of the decision for the PIP award)

However, when claiming UC there's no financial gain to claiming carers allowance and the same time. This is because it's deducted in full from any UC entitlement. The only advantage to claiming it is that you'll receive class 1 NI credits, where as UC is only class 3.

You don't need to claim carers allowance to be entitled to carers element.

Pwisbey

Thank you very much. 

So the sooner the PIP is done, the sooner the carer's commitments can be adjusted accordingly. Seems unfair to people who have to wait longer for the PIP decision to have to do all the job search stuff, when already full time caring. They can't backdate that part though! 

poppy123456

If they already know you have caring duties then the carers element can be backdated. 

They can’t award the carers element until there’s a daily living PIP award in place. 

Pwisbey

Yeah I get that. I meant the claimant commitments part can't be undone by backdating it, even though the person will be retrospectively awarded CA, not without a time machine anyway! Which is why I thought they might give you the benefit of the doubt, pardon the pun 

poppy123456

I don’t understand the need to backdate the claimant commitments part anyway because it won’t benefit you when it’s in the past. You will need to accept new claimant commitments if awarded carers element. 

Pwisbey

Yes, sorry that bit was a bad joke, but the point was that they could reduce the commitments now because when(if) the CA gets backdated in the future they will be accepting that the caring was being done now if you see what I mean. 

It's personal to me because I am in that caring role, waiting for my partner's PIP application to be dealt with and the JC have me doing work focused and 'Over 50 choices' interviews, and at the same time caring full time. They have no interest in reducing the commitments. 

poppy123456

It's highly unlikely that commiments will be reduced because at the moment there's no daily living PIP award, so no entitlement to carers element.