New updates to your Benefit and Budgeting Calculator

Update: SDP Gateway changes

From Wednesday 27 January 2021 regulations come into force to remove the Severe Disability Premium (SDP) Gateway. This means that people currently in receipt of SDP can now make claims for Universal Credit, and will be considered for the Transitional Element if they do so.

We have updated the alerts and notifications in your calculator to reflect this change. We have added a new alert for people in receipt of SDP to give them more detailed information about this change.

Update: Improvements to 'use averages' in the Budget section

We've improved the calculator's average cost estimates so that they more accurately reflect household size and composition, in line with OECD equivalisation scales. This means that households with more than one adult or with children are estimated to have higher costs, but the increase is adjusted to reflect likely savings due to bulk purchases.

You'll find the updated values when you select 'average' in the Budget section. As before, we use aggregate data on household expenditure prepared by the Office for National Statistics to calculate average costs.

Update: Improved 'manage users' section

We have improved the 'manages users' section of the calculator which is available to calculator users with admin or manager level accounts.

You can now search for de-activated users and easily activate or de-activate an account. For example, if a colleague leaves your organisation you can click to de-activate their account. Their account will then show in red as de-activated. If they rejoin your organisation you can click to activate their account and they will re-gain access to the calculator.

Free support page on Your income and Coronavirus (COVID-19)

We have created a welfare support page Your income and Coronavirus (COVID-19) to clearly show what support you might get if your income is affected by Coronavirus. We are updating this page with each announcement by the Government. Please feel free to link to it on your own websites and other communication channels to help your residents understand what support they are eligible for if they or their businesses are impacted by Coronavirus.

View our Coronavirus welfare support page