Universal Credit and home educators

[Riaz]

Any updates on the situation regarding Universal Credit and home educating parents?

I have had a glance at the proposals and it makes grim reading to me. All stick and no carrot. I'm particularly concerned about the heavy handed sanctions and how Working Tax Credits are being axed for the self employed. Some HE parents have become self employed in businesses that make about £10 a week in order to get Working Tax Credits following the abolition of Income Support.

Something tells me that next year when Universal Credit goes live then it's well and truly the end of long term benefits for home educators.

[Ali Admin]

It's very worrying that the tax credit threshold is going to be raised for all self employed people in terms of hours worked and minimum amount earned. Home-edupreneurs are bound to be disproportionately affected by the changes.

I posted this thread recently with links to some useful blog posts which outline the implications of the tax credit /universal credit changeover.

This govt seems determined to pull the rug from under people who are trying hard to earn a living while caring for their children. The other lot would be no better, of course.

[Riaz]

Originally Posted by Ali P

This govt seems determined to pull the rug from under people who are trying hard to earn a living while caring for their children. The other lot would be no better, of course.

It appears to be a very proletariat policy and quite paradoxical for the Conservatives who are very much in favour of business and enterprise. The sort of policy you would expect from the proletariat Labour party who thinks that HE parents are better off flipping burgers and cleaning floors than starting their own businesses. I was hoping to see more initiatives towards self employment and entrepreneural activities as part of Universal Credit (because under the current JSA regime becoming self employed is largely outside of its framework) but I'm left disappointed. This is guesswork but I'm wondering whether Universal Credit is designed to appease multinationals like Tesco in order to supply them with more cheap labour rather than something which genuinely benefits society and the economy.

[Jinnx]

I got the draft proposal document about the UC with a section on how it will be applied to low earning self employed. I can link it if anybody wants to have a look. I think it's the most recent one as I only downloaded it a week or so ago. It is interesting reading (not in a nice way) but I think it still remains to be seen exactly how it'll affect anybody who is self employed (as I am now). I think they're still working on the finer details. I am not optimistic that it will be favourable - maybe I'm just a cynic!

[sapna]

Hi Jinx,
could you post up that link. I'm pretty sure I need to read it. Just read some of the stuff on the government website - very unpleasant reading. The wording appalls me as much as the content.
Thanks
Sapna

[Jinnx]

Hi, I downloaded it on my tablet and I'm on a computer at the moment, but I found the document on this site:

http://edyourself.org/

There's quite a bit of interesting info on there. I'm not at home at the moment, so pushed for time to do a proper search. Can we upload pdf's on this site? The document I downloaded was a pdf.

[Ali Admin]

This Universal Credit site links to all the relevant documents and briefing papers.

[Riaz]

Originally Posted by Ali P

This Universal Credit site links to all the relevant documents and briefing papers.

Bear in mind that it isn't an official site and the government will probably take no notice of any comments or recommendations.

It's guessing but I suspect that large scale benefits reforms are heavily influenced by the decisions of the bankers and captains of big business. Possibly the 'competitiveness' sections of the EU and the WTO.