Flexible working and carers allowance

Pbarto77

Hi. I currently get carers allowance and have done since January 2021 when I stopped working as a part time teacher. I have an opportunity to do supply work from September but the hours will fluctuate. I will be paid only term time and may be asked to work 3 days for example one week then none the next. I keep getting conflicting advice and have nlt found the carers allowance number at all helpful. I had a situation a few yrs back when I had overpayment of carers allowance which I then had to pay back ( due to error from carers allowance who did not act quick enough when told of a change in circumstances. I am aware of the deductions I can make from earnings for pension/ childcare etc but any advice on whether my earnings will be averaged out over a year would be gratefully recieved as I don't want to end up working for nothing. Thanks in advance 

calcotti

The rules are set out in this document
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/893673/dmgch15.pdf
see paragraph 15452 and following

Pbarto77

Thank you for this.  I can see the example of a teaching assistant and it says the dm should only take term time into consideration but does that mean that carers allowance would wait for a whole school year then divide my earnings by the number of term time weeks ? I ve been able to get no helpful guidance from the carers allowance line 

calcotti

I can’t add anything to what is in the guidance but I would infer that it would be reasonable to average over each complete term unless there is a shorter period over which a recognisable cycle can be see. I wouldn’t expect them to average over all the terms in a year.