Are benefits included in the Maintenance Allowance Brackets?

I'm from a single parent family, I don't know the details, but as I understand it my mum's part time job brings in about £7k per year, and then we have benefits on top.
Are these benefits included when they decide how much extra Maintenance loan to give you? I have heard that your family income has to be below 16k to qualify for the full £8.8k loan; if you exclude benefits, our family does fall into that bracket, but if you include benefits, we might not.

It would be a bit stingy to take benefits into account for this. They are designed to be the bare minimum people need to live, not as extra spending money that could be expended on supporting a child at University. Hooray for meritocracy...

Also, it asks if my siblings have any "unearned income" in the form of maintenance grants, when all those payments go to my mum - so surely they have none?
Thanks.