Terms & Conditions

[jerikaz]

I have been asked whether a NHS funded bursary is classifed as earned income and therefore attracts any earnings or child care disregards. I have given up trying to locate the answer in the legislation/guidance. Any ideas? 😕

[Anonymous]

It’s not earned income is the short answer – it’s a grant

[jerikaz]

Thanks for your response – so if they are working 16+ per week – this is not classed as remunerative work as they are not receiving the grant for the work that they do, but because they are a student?

[andyrichards]

Hmmm…..are you saying that they are working and receiving payment for that work as well as a bursary? Or that they are working for no payment other than the bursary?

My understanding of NHS bursaries is that they are paid for study not work.

[jerikaz]

We have 2 types of claims from NHS students:

1 They just receive a bursary from the Health Service but part of their sudies is to actually work in the local hospital to learn how to be a nurse.

2 They receive a bursary from the Health Service as (1) but in addition also do extra work for the local healthcare trust on a nursing bank. They are paid extra for this work.

I am happy that the extra work should be classed as earned income – but not sure about the bursary that both types of student receive. They are working 16+ hours per week – but I don’t think that it can be classed as remunerative work.

[andyrichards]

The bursary is a grant not earnings. Your customer is doing some work as part of their studies but they are not being remunerated for the work – it’s more akin to a period of experience. Clearly if they are doing some other work not related to the requirements of their course then payments for that would be earnings.

The HB regs tend to assume that you cannot be a full-time student and be in remunerative work at the same time. In the real world this is clearly nonsense. It is perfectly possible (and, I dare say, common) for a student to be also working at least 16 hours per week. If this were the case the person would be entitled to the childcare disregard even if they had also received childcare grants which are also disregarded. But I do not think that periods of experience for which they get no further remuneration over and above the bursary they were getting anyway count as remunerative work.

Waits to be shot down………

[jerikaz]

Thanks – sounds reasonable to me and logical to me.

[LindaL]

My daughter has just trained as a nurse. She got a bursary and student loan (she was not doing diploma course). However, she also did extra shifts when she could to earn some extra money, but this wasn’t very often because mainly she did 37 hours a week training. She would do extra shifts in her holidays or if she was desperate for money, she would work on her day off. Quite often I find NHS students say they “work” when in fact this is their training and they are not paid for this. I’ve even had a claimant who was training and was getting WTC because she told the HMRC that she was working.

[Author]

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