Are you part of a couple claiming Universal Credit?
2 mins read
Tuesday 13 January 2026
Many disabled children and young people in families Contact supports require full-time care from both of their parents.
Only one parent can make a claim for Carers Allowance, the Scottish Carer Support Payment, or the carer element in Universal Credit for each disabled child. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) does not expect this parent to work or look for work as part of their Universal Credit award.
Unfortunately, this means that in order to claim Universal Credit, the other parent will normally need to actively search for work. This is unless there is another disabled child in the household.
Our new templates can help you
The DWP does have the power to exempt the second caring parent from work-related activity. Regulation 89(1)b of the Universal Credit regulations 2013 sets this out.
But work coaches aren’t always aware that they have the power to exempt second caring parents from searching for work.
We have a new page with more detailed information about caring couples. Our page explains how to ask your work coach to exempt a second caring parent from work searching. And we have developed template letters you can use to make this request to your work coach in your online journal.
You can find all this on our new webpages about Caring couples and Universal Credit.
We’d love to hear your feedback
If you use our template letters, we’ve like to know how you get on. This really helps us measure the impact of our work.
Please share your feedback by emailing [email protected]
