Replies
No one has replied to this post.
I believe - but am happy to be corrected - that your learner IS eligible as unemployed. This opinion is based on the funding rules referencing their take home pay and not total household income or the income of a partner etc... .Extract from the funding rules below - provided for completeness.
I think that the joint income amount referenced is there to benefit lower wage individuals who are supporting a joint claimant, by giving them a higher threshold for funding eligibility, rather than disadvantaging those who are being supported.
HTH,
Phil
Exact wording from current funding rules: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/adult-skills-fund-funding-rules-for-2024-to-2025/adult-skills-fund-funding-rules-2024-to-2025#unemployed
-
receive UC, and their take-home pay as recorded on their UC statement (disregarding UC payments and other benefits) is less than £892 a month (learner is sole adult in their benefit claim) or £1,437 a month (learner has a joint benefit claim with their partner)
You will recall, at the start of the year, that they took the Unemployed definition out of the Rules and then put it back in when we all got confused...
I think that, as the learner themselves (and it's got nothing to do with their partner's wages) is clearly earning under £25k a year that you could fully fund them through the Earnings Threshold without having to worry about the UC "unemployed" bit.
Thank you to you both! I can understand from both perspectives, we've also had a self-employed learner come through where the both partners are earning through self-employment. The learner who is applying for the programme, their reported self-employment earnings as reports on the UC statement would be less than the earnings threshold however the UC has been worked out on the minimum income floor (amount of money a employed person in a similar situation would earn on NMW after tax and insurance) and this calculation would be higher than the threshold. In this scenario would you take the actual earnings from the UC statement instead of the Minimum income floor?
Vic
Universal Credit and Low Wage
Created
Morning,
We have a learner who is unemployed claiming UC as a joint claimant with their partner. The learner does not earn any wage but their partner is in excess of the £1437 threshold for a joint claimant. My interpretation is that they would not be eligible for Level 3 ASF funding as they do not meet the definition of unemployed as the joint take-home pay is above the threshold. in this instance could the take-home pay of the partner be used as low wage evidence (it's a shame the learner would need to take out a ADV loan when they are unemployed and claiming UC and have no earned income themself. ) ?