Half a million parents are facing delayed child benefit support
Parents are already struggling with inflated costs however, a batch processing issue at HMRC means around half a million parents have lost out on child benefits payments.
The tax authority, who often issue child benefit payments every four months at the beginning of the week, have said their technical issue meant 30% of Monday’s scheduled payments did not go through and would not be made until tomorrow – Wednesday 5th June 2024.
The news comes after child benefit payments changed last month to help parents with one child. Since April 2024, parents have been able to claim £25.60 per week for one child and £16.95 for each subsequent child. In addition, people can claim the benefit if they are responsible for bringing up a child under 16, or under 20 if they are in approved education or training.
As it stands, only one parent can receive the payment, but there isn’t any restrictions on how many children you can claim for.
Parents that have been affected by the payment being late this month have complained that they didn’t have enough money for their child’s bus fare to school or their school lunch. As a result, HMRC have advised parents to keep receipts or screenshots if they want to be claim redress.
Commenting on the situation, Danielle, a mum from London took to X (formly known as Twitter) and tweeted: ‘In 14 years, I’ve never had a problem getting my CB on time. I was very surprised by this issue. Hopefully, it’ll be rectified quickly. I feel for anyone who was relying on this money’.
Likewise, a spokesperson from HMRC, said: ‘We have now fixed the problem and are putting measures in place to prevent this from happening again.
‘Affected customers will now receive their payments on Wednesday morning. Anyone who has incurred a direct financial loss because of the delayed payment can apply for redress by completing our online complaints form.’
Arguably, this problem couldn’t have come at a worse time. Current inflated costs have forced millions of families into poverty across the UK – new research from the Joesph Rowntree Foundation has highlighted that 1.5 million working age adults and 700,000 children are on the brink of poverty.
Image: Steven Van Loy
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