Carer's Allowance (CA)

What is carers allowance?

Carer's allowance (CA) is a benefit for people who regularly spend at least 35 hours a week caring for a disabled person. The amount of savings you have does not affect your CA.

What are the rules?

To get carer's allowance you must:

• be caring for a person who is receiving either higher or middle rate care component of disability living allowance, attendance allowance or getting constant attendance allowance of £57.50 - this allowance is paid with the industrial injuries or war pensions schemes).
• be aged 16 or over
• be caring for at least 35 hours a week
• not be in full time education (21 hours a week)
• be present and resident in Great Britain

The residence and presence tests

To satisfy these tests you must:

• be ordinarily resident in the UK
• be present in the UK for 26 weeks in the last 12 months
• not be subject to immigration control. There are exceptions to this rule e.g. if you have refugee status or exceptional leave to remain or are a European Economic Area (EEA) national.

Ordinarily resident is not defined. It is taken to mean the place where you normally live for the time being if there is a degree of continuity about your stay and it can be described as being settled.

Present means physically present in UK.

If you go abroad to live in an EEA country and your CA is exportable you do not have to satisfy the residence and presence rules.

Exporting or claiming carer's allowance in the European Economic Area (EEA)

On 18 October 2007 the European Court of Justice ruled that carer's allowance can be paid to people who move from the UK to another country within the European Economic Area (EEA).

Information on claiming disability benefits if you live in another European country and taking disability benefits to other European countries is available on the DirectGov website at www.direct.gov.uk.

You can also find out more information about exporting carer's allowance by contacting the Pensions, Disability and Carers Service exportability team:

Exportability Co-ordinator
Room C216
Pension, Disability and Carers Service
Warbreck House
Warbreck Hill Road
Blackpool
FY2 0YE

Email: exportability.team@dwp.gsi.gov.uk .

How much do I get?

The rates are:

• £53.10 per week for you
• £31.70 for an adult dependant - your husband, wife or civil partner or any other adult who looks after your child(ren)

If you have dependent children you may be able to get extra help by claiming child tax credit.

If your partner has certain benefits or earnings or an occupational and personal pension of more than £31.70 this affects the adult dependant addition.

The amount of savings you have does not affect your CA.

CA can continue to be paid for up to 8 weeks after the person you care for has died.

How do I claim?

You claim on form DS700 (DS700(SP) if you get a state pension). These forms are available from a Jobcentre Plus office, Pension Centre or by ringing the free Benefit Enquiry Line (0800 882200 or 0800 220674 in Northern Ireland).

You can also claim carers allowance online in Great Britain at www.direct.gov.uk/carers-ca.

If you are over retirement age

If your state retirement pension is less than your CA (£53.10 a week) you will be entitled to a top up of CA to that amount.

If your pension is more than £53.10 you won't actually get CA but you will still have an "underlying entitlement" to it, which may help you to get means tested benefits.

Whichever applies you may still be able to get extra pension credit because you are entitled to CA.

What if I am working?

If you get CA you are allowed to work but must earn no more than £95 a week after tax, NI contributions and half of any pension contributions have been taken into account.

If you pay someone to look after the person you care for or any of your children who are under age 16 you can have up to half of these payments offset against any earnings you receive. You cannot do this if the payments are made to a close relative.

A close relative is the parent, partner, son, daughter, brother or sister of a carer or the person being cared for.

CA and means-tested benefits

If you are "entitled" to receive CA you can also get the carer premium (or carer's addition if you are on pension credit) when claiming income support, income related employment and support allowance, housing benefit or council tax benefit.

If you receive another benefit, such as incapacity benefit, state retirement pension or contributory employment and support allowance, which prevents you actually being paid CA you can still get the carer premium or addition.

If you are paid CA it may stop the person you care for from getting severe disability premium as part of their income support, income related employment and support allowance, housing benefit or council tax benefit. If you are not actually being paid CA because you are on another benefit you can get the carer premium/addition and the person you care for can keep their severe disability premium.

Where can I get more help and information?

You can get help at a local advice centre, such as a citizen's advice bureau. You can get more information about this from our factsheet F15, Finding a local advice centre, which is available at www.cara-online.org

You can obtain copies of our factsheets by contacting The Central Africa’s Rights & AIDS (CARA) Society on 020 7254 6415 or by fax on 020 7254 6415 or email: caraas@hotmail.com  or info@cara-online.org