How we calculate financial eligibility for Adoption Allowance

We calculate your income and expenses to determine your eligibility for Adoption Allowance.
When determining income we include -

• Earnings from employment or self-employment minus Income Tax and National Insurance.  We will get this information either form your most recent P60 or from your taxable earnings, Income Tax and National Insurance payments made during the year to date – not an average of these over the past months.
• Certain benefits, including Child and Working Tax Credits, Universal Credit, contributions based Job Seekers Allowance and Carers Allowance.
• Pension income
• Income from property
• Child support payments received
• Certain other income
• Where you have capital we disregard £10,000 for a single person, £20,000 for a couple and then calculate a weekly tariff. The remaining capital is then divided by 500 to give a weekly tariff. An example of a couple with £25000 capital is given below -

We do not include -

• Certain benefits including Disability Living Allowance and Personal Independence Payments.
• Child Benefit – although we do reduce payments by the amount of Child Benefit received.

When determining your expenses we include -

• A personal allowance of £23600 for couples and £18920 for single parents.
• £3600 personal allowance for each child living in the family home.
• Child support payments made
• Certain other expenditure but this is usually only where the expense is as a direct result of additional needs of your adopted child.

Once we have reached a figure for income and a figure for expenses we calculate the ratio. If less than 70% of your income is spent on the expenses described above you will not be eligible for Adoption Allowance.

Allowances Payable according to % outgoings 

For further details, please contact AFAdmin@aberdeencity.gov.uk