MIF for the self employed on Universal Credit

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Dear Department for Work and Pensions,

I am writing to request information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

I would be interested in any information held by the DWP regarding the current guidance given to the job centre work coaches regarding applying the minimum income floor (MIF) when dealing with the self employed UC claimants. This includes any 'tool kits' or official guides that are issued for job coaches to follow.

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I look forward to your response within 20 working days as outlined by the statute.

Thank you for your help

Yours faithfully,

J Labas

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DWP Strategy Freedom of Information, Department for Work and Pensions

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DWP Strategy Freedom of Information, Department for Work and Pensions

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Please see the attached reply, and accompanying documents, to your Freedom
of Information request.

 

 

Yours sincerely

 

DWP Strategy FoI Team

 

 

 

Dear DWP Strategy Freedom of Information,

I was disappointed with your reply.

There was nothing I couldn't have found out from a UC leaflet. Surely that's not all the advice you give to your work coaches?

Yours sincerely,

Jane Labas

J Roberts left an annotation ()

Latest Upper Tribunal appeal on the Minimum Income Floor - KD v SSWP (CUC) [2020] UKUT 18(AAC). A self-employed gardener who works four months of each year and who said he had Asperger's syndrome lost:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk...

“19. Whilst there has been previous case law relating to what in some situations became a vexed question as to how claims made by seasonal workers for other benefits ought to be treated, it is difficult to find any basis to conclude that such case law might assist with respect to universal credit.... the fact that, in the claimant’s case and in the cases of persons in an analogous position, of the shortage of work in winter being entirely predictable, would mean that it was, nevertheless, regular ...Indeed, it seems to me that the word regular would be entirely appropriate to describe a business which conformed to a standard pattern even if that pattern had predictable or relatively predictable variations.

“21. Additionally and in any event, whilst Asperger’s syndrome may limit the type of work a claimant is able to do, there seems no obvious reason (and none was suggested to the tribunal) why such a condition should limit the number of hours a claimant can work if the claimant has found a suitable type of work he or she is capable of undertaking. After all, it is not a debilitating condition that obviously reduces, on the face of it at least, mental or physical effort tolerance.”