Hi sknuts, congratulations on your stipend – what an achievement! I started my PhD two years ago and after reporting the change to HMRC, I lost the working tax credit element (cos studying doesn’t count as work even when it is funded), but kept the child element, because from the HMRC point of view, stipends do not count as an income. They do however count as an income from the council perspective (ie housing benefit). I have no experience with universal credit though, but imagine that they similarly don’t count stipends as an income. Good luck!
