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Aberdeen &Shire Advice Workers Forum: Twitter / Facebook / KnowledgeHub / Email. Previous Bulletins HERE.
Monday 13th July 2020 Newsletter for advisers in Aberdeen City & Aberdeenshire Issue.09
BenefitsBulletin Aberdeen City & Shire Advice Forum is a local network for people working in advice ser-
vices to share information and experiences. The Forum meets quarterly throughout the year.
Statutory Sick Pay to Be Removed for
Those Asked To Shield
DWP UPDATE - From 1st August, the government has announced its intention to remove Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) for those who have been told to shield be-cause they are 'clinically extremely vul-nerable'. Disability Rights article HERE.
DWP confirms that, as lockdown measures are lifted, no sanctions will be used until claimants have an up-to-date claimant commitment
In addition, DWP says that those 'who are shielding, have childcare responsibilities because of COVID restrictions, etc' will not be asked to do anything unreasonable
These are difficult, uncertain times for many people and the DWP say they want to do everything they can to help people them find work or increase hours, where that is possible for them.
No sanction will be used until the claimant has an up-to-date Claimant Commitment in place. After that, a sanction will only be used where a claimant has not provided good reason for meeting the agreed requirements in the Claimant Commitment.
Claimants who are shielding, have childcare responsibilities because of COVID restrictions, etc. will have their Claimant Commitment tailored to reflect their cir-cumstances and will not be asked to do anything unreasonable.
The new edition of the DWP's Coronavirus Touchbase Special is available from dwp.gov.uk
£49 top-up Prepayment voucher scheme closed on Tuesday 7
th July.
Scarf’s prepayment voucher scheme is now closed to new applicants as funds have been fully allocated. The scheme has experienced unprecedented levels of demand in past week leading to its closure.
If you have already called and registered your interest you will be contacted and updated on your application’s pro-gress. Any new applicants can no long-er be processed as the scheme closed on 7
th July and funds have been allocat-
ed.
Thanks to Home Energy Scotland for their support throughout the process.
BREAKING NEWS: ACVO News Edition 3 is out now! If it hasn’t landed in your inbox, remember to check your Spam/
Junk folder and add us to your contacts for Edition 4!
Sign up today to receive our new e-newsletter.
Government announces furlough scheme changes. What you need to know
From 1 July, employers can bring furloughed employ-ees back to work for any amount of time and any shift pattern, while still being able to claim CJRS grant for the hours not worked.
From 1 August 2020, the level of grant will be reduced each month. To be eligible for the grant employers must pay furloughed employees 80% of their wages, up to a cap of £2,500 per month for the time they are being furloughed.
If you stay on furlough until October, you won't see any changes in terms of how much you're paid or when, you'll still get a minimum of 80% of your normal wage.
What's changing is more a behind-the-scenes adjustment of what the state covers and what your employer has to cover. Here's a road map of how that'll work:
• June and July: The state will continue to pay 80% of salaries, plus national insurance and pension contributions as it does now. Employers are not required to pay anything.
• August: The state will pay 80% of wages, up to a cap of £2,500/mth. Employ-ers will now have to pay national insurance and pension contributions.
• September: The state will pay 70% of wages, up to a cap of £2,190/mth. Em-ployers will have to pay national insurance and pension contributions, and 10% of wages to make up 80% of the total, up to a cap of £2,500/mth.
• October: The state will pay 60% of wages, up to a cap of £1,875/mth. Employ-ers will then need to pay national insurance and pension contributions, and 20% of wages to make up 80% of the total, up to a cap of £2,500/mth
www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2020/05/government-announces-furlough-scheme-changes
Virtual meeting
Aberdeen and Shire Advice Forum will at-tempt a virtual meeting on MS Teams - Wed 22nd July at 10:00am.
For those that have not received an invite please EMAIL.
Aberdeen &Shire Advice Workers Forum: Twitter / Facebook / KnowledgeHub / Email. Previous Bulletins HERE.
EU Settlement Scheme
There is still one year to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme.
Around 3.3 million have already been granted status and there is plenty of sup-port available.
EEA citizens and their family members are encouraged to apply now.
DWP to recommence recovery of benefit related overpayments and social fund loans
People will be notified by letter or universal credit journal en-tries, though can request a deferral if they are experiencing 'real financial hardship'
Recovery action was paused for three months in the early phase of the COVID-19 lockdown, and the DWP said that the change would mean that many claimants would see an increase in the amount of money they receive in benefits during the coronavirus outbreak, and that it would also allow it to move staff to frontline roles to support the payment of benefits to people making new claims.
However, the DWP has today said that, as it now begins the recommencement of debt recovery -
'Customers who previously paid by Direct Debit will receive a letter in advance of payments recommencing, giving details of the new request Debt Manage-ment has sent to the bank. We will also write to all customers who previously repaid through deductions from wages, giving them the opportunity to set up an alternative repayment plan. All other customers will be notified by letter or Universal Credit journal entries, that are issued when deductions are taken from benefit, or repayment of a debt is due to start.'
The DWP adds that people who are experiencing 'real financial hardship' can request deferral of repayments by contacting the Debt Management line on 0800 916 0647.
Face-to-face assessment suspension continues for health and disability benefits
Face-to-face assessments to remain suspended, but kept un-der review
• Some review and reassessment activity to gradually resume from July 2020 for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Disability Living Allowance (DLA)
• People are encouraged not to delay making claims as all benefits remain open and telephone and paper based assessments are in place where appropriate
This temporary suspension, initially brought in for three months to protect people from unnecessary risk of coronavirus at the outset of the pandemic, will remain in place following a consideration of the latest public health guidance.
All services remain open and people are encouraged to make a claim if they believe they need support, or to update the department on a change of their circumstances.
As measures are taken across the country to ease restrictions, the department will also gradually resume some review and reassessment activity which had been put on hold because of the coronavirus outbreak. We will shortly be restarting review and renewal activity in PIP and DLA, starting with those claims which were already underway when this activity was suspended.
What this means for claimants:
• Anyone who makes a new claim or is due an assessment will be contacted, if necessary, to discuss next steps, which could involve either telephone or paper-based assessments.
• We will shortly be writing out to some PIP and DLA claimants asking them to complete paperwork to resume their reviews, reassessments and renewals. For PIP cases where paperwork has already been returned, claimants may be con-tacted by one of our Assessment Providers.
Aberdeen City Council has re-affirmed its commit-ment to providing free school meals over the sum-mer holiday period.
With schools breaking up last week, the Council reassured par-ents that the provision will continue for children eligible until schools reopen in August, despite the economic impact of Covid-19 on Council funds.
The provision of free school meals will continue in the form of supermarket vouch-ers which were introduced in response to the enforced closure of schools since March. Parents are provided with a weblink in order to access a fortnightly voucher worth £25 which can be redeemed at the supermarket chain of their choice.
In addition to the vouchers, catering will also be provided during the summer break at Orchard Brae School and childcare hubs across the city which the Council opened to help children and young people particularly affected by the Covid-19 out-break.
We moved into Phase 3 of the route map on July 9. Follow our route map page for local updates.
Written questions
Allow Members of Parlia-ment to ask government min-isters for information on the work, policy and activities of government departments.
Find the latest written questions and answers for the 2019-21 session HERE.
Aberdeen &Shire Advice Workers Forum: Twitter / Facebook / KnowledgeHub / Email. Previous Bulletins HERE.
The latest COSLA COVID-19 bulletin for Elected Members has been published and can be viewed here.
Windrush: learning about history, learning from history.
How well is Universal Credit supporting people in Glas-gow? Published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
Report by the National Audit Office (10/07/2020) - Universal Credit: getting to first payment
Social Security Scotland is taking inbound calls from clients again.
People can now speak to a Social Security Scotland Client Advi-sor by calling 0800 182 2222 between 9am and 3pm Monday to Friday.
This has been reinstated following a period where clients were being asked to leave voicemails to arrange call backs.
This arrangement was put in place to enable Social Security Scotland staff to work from home in support of efforts to slow the spread of the virus.
Social Security Scotland has now found a way to take inbound calls from home and was pleased to launch this last Friday 3 July.
A web chat service is also available Monday to Friday between 8am and 6pm for general enquiries.
The Social Security Administration and Tribunal Membership (Scotland) Bill 2020 was introduced to the Scottish Parliament on 27 April 2020, on an expe-dited timetable with the aim of receiving Royal Assent in the autumn of 2020.
The Bill and the accompanying documents (policy memorandum, financial memoran-dum and explanatory notes) can be found here.
The Scottish Parliament Social Security Committee launched a 'Call for Evidence' in May 2020 and received 14 written submissions. These can be located here.
The Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People attended an oral evi-dence session with the committee on 21 May 2020 and the committee published their Stage 1 report on 8 June. The report confirms the Social Security Committee's support for the general principle of the Bill. A formal Scottish Government response was provided to the Social Security Committee on 19 June 2020 and can be found here.
Stage 1 concluded on 24 June 2020 when the parliament voted in favour of the gen-eral principles of the Bill. The Scottish Government is continuing to engage with stakeholders to address a number of the points raised within the Stage 1 report and the Stage 1 report".
Scottish Social Security News
RECENT CASELAW
JT v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (PIP): [2020] UKUT 186 (AAC)
Personal Independence Payment - engaging with other people face to face - whether claimant cannot engage with other people due to such engagement causing overhelming psy-chological distress - rele-vance and application of reg.4(2A) of the Social Security (Personal Inde-
pendence Payment) Regulations 2013
Read the full decision in CPIP/1781/2019.
The Chancellor Rishi Sunak today set out a ‘Plan for Jobs’ that will spur the UK’s recovery from the Corona-virus outbreak (Published 8 July 2020)
Government announces £1 billion investment in the DWP to ‘support millions of people back to work’ - Rightsnet article
The BBC will go ahead with a plan to end free TV licences for many over-75s, after a delay because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Free TV licences for the over-75s will be restricted to those who re-ceive Pension Credit.
More than three million households will be asked to start paying the £157.50 fee from 1 August. BBC article.
New DWP guidance
The DWP has issued new guidance in relation to the cal-culation of the earnings thresh-old for the purpose of the ben-efit cap grace period in universal credit.
ADM Memo 14/20 is available from gov.uk
DWP replaces complaints handling service with new triage system
The old complaints service involved two tiers and put the responsibility on the customer to escalate their complaint if they were not satisfied with how it was handled at tier one.
The changes mean that from 9 July 2020 a new centralised team, made up of experienced complaint handlers, will triage the complaints and prioritise those that are the most serious or from vulnerable claimants.
More information about this new process can be found on the complaints procedure page.
Aberdeen &Shire Advice Workers Forum: Twitter / Facebook / KnowledgeHub / Email. Previous Bulletins HERE.
The Vicar’s Relief Fund (VRF)
Preventing and alleviating homelessness throughout the UK
VRF Emergency Fund: We launched the VRF Emergency Fund on 8
th April in response to feedback from
over 900 frontline workers who responded to our Emergency Fund Survey in the first few weeks of the crisis.
This Emergency Fund provides grants under the categories of Basic Essential Needs, Overcoming Barriers to Support and Securing Accommodation to those af-fected by the COVID-19 crisis. More information can be found here.
Registration and applying to the Emergency Fund are the same as the VRF. The VRF Emergency Fund replaces the VRF until further notice.
We have updated our consent form to allow for verbal consent to be obtained and this can also be completed electronically. This form can be found on our Flexi-Grant application portal and also here. You should upload the consent form to Section 5 of your grant application form. Please email [email protected] if you have any questions regarding this.
VRF Emergency Fund Opening Times: Mondays to Fridays between 9am and 5pm, excluding Bank Holidays. You can start and edit an application when we are closed to submissions.
Registration and Login: To register for the first time to use our system, click on the 'Register' button. Otherwise, click the 'Login'.
**LAUNCHED 6th JULY FOR 3 WEEKS - ACCESS TO CHILDCARE FUND**
This Scottish Government fund is being administered by Children in Scotland and will provide grants to test models of delivering accessible and affordable school age childcare for low income families, allowing parents to reduce childcare costs, work more flexibly and increase their incomes. The £3 million fund will be delivered over two years with a total of £1.5 million pounds allo-cated between successful applicants in this funding round.
The fund launches from 6 July and applications will be open for 3 weeks, closing on at 17:00 27 July.
Applications can be made electronically via Children in Scotland’s website: children-inscotland.org.uk/access-to-childcare-fund/
The DWP has issued new guidance in relation to disregarding charitable and extra-statutory payments for the purposes of assessing univer-sal credit entitlement.
in DMG Memo 13/20, the DWP provides guidance on chang-es introduced by the Social Security (Income and Capital) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2020 and advises that, with effect from 15 July 2020, the following payments are disregarded indefinitely for the purposes of universal credit -
• payments made by the National Emergencies Trust;
• payments received from the Child Migrants Trust; and
• extra-statutory payments made to provide redress to people affected by ini-tial errors in the way claims for new style employment and support allow-ance were handled by the DWP.
In addition, the guidance advises that the definition of 'postgraduate loan' is ex-panded to include loans made to students undertaking a postgraduate doctoral degree course - in line with the treatment of existing postgraduate loans, a per-son’s student income for the purposes of calculating entitlement to universal credit is to be based upon 30 per cent of the maximum amount of the loan (subject to any applicable disregard) the student could reasonably expect to ob-tain for the course.
DMG Memo 13/20 is available from gov.uk
Government announces that current contracts for PIP and work capability assessments are to be extended for up to two years.
Although the Government remains commit-ted to developing a transformed service through the creation of a single, integrated health assessment service this will not go ahead at present :). Statement HERE
Data sharing exercise in Scotland identifies potential housing benefit overpayments of almost £3 million
New National Fraud Initiative report from Audit Scotland presents the re-sults of an exercise carried out across more than 120 public bodies in Scot-land. Read the report HERE.
EU citizens are now being turned down for settled status
The Home Office has started to refuse EU citizens and their family members the right to stay in the UK post-Brexit. It issued 1,400 re-fusals under the EU Settlement Scheme in June 2020 alone, com-pared to 900 over the whole of the last couple of years. There had been 200 refusals in May, meaning that the number of refusals has jumped 600% month on month.
Aberdeen &Shire Advice Workers Forum: Twitter / Facebook / KnowledgeHub / Email. Previous Bulletins HERE.
At a glance: All the measures announced in last weeks Summer Statement Last Wednesday the chancellor delivered a summer eco-nomic update in the Commons focusing on measures to boost the economy after the coronavirus crisis. Here's what was announced
Job retention bonus Employers who have furloughed staff under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) will get a £1,000 bonus for every employee they keep in employment until the end of January 2021. Companies will get the extra cash in February 2021.
Employees are only eligible if they earn above the Lower Earn-ings Limit of £520 a month - which means they qualify to pay
National Insurance. The Treasury claims 90% of those furloughed earned above that limit dur-ing 2019/2020.
The policy has been costed at £9.4bn, but this figure assumes that bonuses will be issued for all 9.4 million people currently furloughed under the CJRS. The actual cost will likely be lower as companies make redundancies post-pandemic.
Kickstart Scheme A new Kickstart Scheme is to be launched to create high-quality six-month work place-ments aimed at those aged 16-24 who are on Universal Credit and are deemed to be at risk of long-term unemployment.
Employers will get funding to cover the relevant National Minimum Wage for each employee up to a total of 25 hours a week. National Insurance contributions and other automatic enroll-ments will also be covered.
The scheme is expected to cost £2.1bn, but final costs and timing of spending will be subject to how many employers take part.
Supporting jobs A range of smaller measures has also been announced by the chancellor to help people gain new skills and find work.
To support job hunters, £32m extra funding has been set aside for the National Careers Service over the next to years, which it is claimed will give 269,000 more people access to job advice.
There’s also £895m pledged to double the number of work coaches in job centres and £40m to support private sector job-hunting capacity.
To help young people into work, £111m has also been set aside for traineeships aimed at 16 to 24-year-olds, with another £101m to go towards Level 2 and 3 courses for unemployed school and college leavers.
And employers taking on new apprentices will get an extra £2,000 for every new apprentice they hire under 25, or £1,500 for each above that age. This will be in addition to existing £1,000 grants for each 16 to 18-year-old apprentice taken on.
There is also cash to expand support for youth offenders, boost the Work and Health Pro-gramme, and increase the number of sector-based work academies as part of an over-all £1.6billion package.
VAT cuts and 'Eat Out to Help Out' From 15 July 2020 to 12 January 2021, VAT on food and non-alcoholic drinks from restau-rants, cafes, pubs and similar business will be slashed to 5% from 20%. Accommodation and admissions to attractions in the UK will also be dropped to 5% over the same period.
The Chancellor has also announced his “Eat Out to Help Out” scheme, which will give every diner in participating eateries a 50% discount of up to £10 per head on their meal.
You can use this discount an unlimited number of times between Monday and Wednesday when you dine in, but alcohol is not included. The scheme will run throughout August, and the Treasury will foot the bill for the 50% discount.
The VAT cut is expected to cost £4.1billion, while Eat Out to Help Out will come to a more modest £500m.
Stamp Duty cut and Green Homes Grant The threshold at which housebuyers pay no stamp duty on house purchases will go up from £125,000 to £500,000 between 8 July 2020 and 31 March 2021 in England and Northern Ireland.
The Government has also introduced a Green Homes Grant which will double the amount spent by a landlord or home-owner to make their property more energy-efficient.
The grant is capped at £5,000 per household, but for low-income households costs up to £10,000 will be fully covered by the Treasury.
The stamp duty cut will cost a sizeable £3.8billion, while the Green Homes Grant is expected to come to £2billion.
Public sector decarbonisation To help reach its goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions from the public sector by 2032, the government has announced an investment of £1billion to improve energy efficiency in pub-lic buildings such as schools and hospitals.
There’s also a separate £40m to improve the sustainability of Britain’s court system. A pilot scheme is also being planned to decarbonise the least energy-efficient social rented homes, starting with a £50m demonstrator project in 2020-21.
