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mind the gap!
so I have clients living in the Keighley/Skipton area where UC came into ‘full service’ sometime at the end of last year…
however, when a tenant of mine was involved in a car crash and ended up on SSP for 10 weeks - - she was unable to claim UC for help with her housing costs because the ‘system’ was not quite set up for her circumstances - single parent. - most recent attempt was two weeks ago.
so we attempted to put a HB claim in as all else had failed - the online system wouldn’t let us through - trying to claim on the phone wouldn’t allow us to go through either - but Craven Council simply will not accept the claim.
But UC wont either - because although they went ‘full service’ mid November - the system is simply not ready.
any ideas?? other than client having to cover the housing costs herself when she goes back to work..
This is my stomping ground. Craven went full service on 12th October, this sounds like a UC problem, not an HB one.
When the live service rolled out here in 2015 I suspected there was a problem with some of the postcodes for the Craven/Keighley boundary. Unfortunately I never got to the bottom of it. See my post here:
Hi Zoey - that’s awful! Did she actually get a claim in? What actually happened when she tried to make a claim - did she just try online or did she try a telephone claim too? What was she told? If the claim wasn’t allowed to be made then she will need to complain - if an area is full service it’s full service!
I think if she successfully got a claim in and they then make a decision that they can’t pay for whatever reason then you MR/appeal it - they will just have to do it clerically if the system can’t manage it.
I
Awful situation, but sadly not surprising. I agree that as a Full Service area, a Full Service should be available, and the fact that it is not is not acceptable. However, I suspect no-one at DWP will be accountable! They will do their best to blame the claimant, as usual!
... the ‘system’ was not quite set up for her circumstances…
so we attempted to put a HB claim in as all else had failed - the online system wouldn’t let us through - trying to claim on the phone wouldn’t allow us to go through either - but Craven Council simply will not accept the claim.
But UC wont either - because although they went ‘full service’ mid November - the system is simply not ready…
Presumably this is either an error by DWP or could actually be the SoS exercising his discretion under reg 4 of TP 2014 regs. (Assuming DWP are acting lawfully then what else could it be?)
In the latter case, the Council should pay HB as it’s an article 7 exemption to the No 23 order.
I sympathise to an extent with Local Authority staff because there’s been an almost complete lack of guidance to LAs on how the UC rollout actually functions in legislative terms. ( And what little information they’ve been given is out of date and in some cases inaccurate or ambiguous.)
I’ve been trying to encourage LAs to forget about the “lobster pot” nonsense and the myth of a ‘no exceptions’ full-service. As a minimum I’d hope they’d work on the basis that if UC say “no” then they can say “yes”.
Unfortunately, if you take a look at Neil Couling’s evidence to the Scottish Parliament Social Security Committee (thanks to Jon SPICe : see http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/10325/#49422 )
you get the distinct impression that DWP are just making things up as they go along and that what the regulations say is something of an irrelevance.
unfortunately Daphne - she has been left to her own devices. I tried doing the online claim and a telephone claim only to be passed from pillar to post and being told by UC she should make a claim for HB as her postcode wasn’t quite up and running yet - BD22
however as I said I completed the HB form and advised her to take it to the LA and not take no for an answer - however they simply wouldn’t accept it
now she has around 10 weeks of arrears but has gone back to work so will be making arrangements to clear them herself.
unfortunately Daphne - she has been left to her own devices. I tried doing the online claim and a telephone claim only to be passed from pillar to post and being told by UC she should make a claim for HB as her postcode wasn’t quite up and running yet - BD22
however as I said I completed the HB form and advised her to take it to the LA and not take no for an answer - however they simply wouldn’t accept it
now she has around 10 weeks of arrears but has gone back to work so will be making arrangements to clear them herself.
whilst in the meantime you put complaint in
and it occurs to me, if the car crash was someone else’s fault she should be claiming compensation and loss of earnings. if she were to succeed in that then that would assist her substantially putting her finances back together.
I said above this looks like a UC error, you should probably ignore that.
In recent meetings, the LA staff here have been clear that the entire district now falls under full UC.
In the gateway rollout in 2015 the LA and JCP were equally clear, despite the Craven areas in BD20 and BD22 being omitted from the list of relevant districts at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/402501/universal-credit-index-of-relevant-districts.pdf
This time round, as I read it, they’ve done a bit better as postcode areas ‘BD20 7’ and ‘BD20 8’ which are in Craven have now been included for full UC, as per Part 8 of this SI (the other Craven areas are in Part 3):
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2016/963/made
However, some of the ‘BD22 0’ area also falls in Craven (Cowling, to be specific), but has not been included in the above SI.
So, does it follow that HB should be allowed from that postcode?
edit to add, for future ref: I’ve just noticed that some of BD20 9xx is in our area, but is not listed in the commencement order. So that’s another small group residents in our district that weren’t caught up in the full roll-out last year.
[ Edited: 30 Aug 2017 at 12:03 pm by Jon (CANY) ]...only to be passed from pillar to post and being told by UC she should make a claim for HB as her postcode wasn’t quite up and running yet - BD22
however as I said I completed the HB form and advised her to take it to the LA and not take no for an answer - however they simply wouldn’t accept it
BD22? In that case it sounds like LA error as BD22 district is all still live-service.
It’s the postcode (to sector level) and not the LA which determines live service or full service ( disappointingly, some LAs seem unaware of this fact.)
As Jon CHDCA says, sector BD22 0 is split between Craven (e.g BD22 0A*) and Bradford (e.g BD22 0P*) but every one in BD22 0 (and the rest of BD22 district) is living in a live-service area.
Zoey - for future reference - if you need to check whether a person lives in a full service or live service area use our postcode checker - http://www.universalcreditinfo.net - if you put in the full postcode it will give you all the information you need
Thanks for raising this issue Zoey, this is going to affect some of our clients. Would be interested to know the outcome, if possible.
[ Edited: 19 Jan 2017 at 08:22 pm by Jon (CANY) ]well - the poor lass has gone back to work now so is attempting to clear her arrears herself - but as Claire suggested - I did say to her to include the housing costs in her compensation claim as she has lost out financially.
well - the poor lass has gone back to work now so is attempting to clear her arrears herself - but as Claire suggested - I did say to her to include the housing costs in her compensation claim as she has lost out financially.
Is it worth going back to the LA since they shouldn’t have refused HB?