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UC and final wages
Hello,
A client made contact with us about a nil award of UC. His employment contract came to an end in June and he claimed UC while still awaiting his last payment of wages. This payment was received about a week into his UC assessment period on June 29.
He stated he was “not awaiting wages” when completing the online application, as he had been told by his former employer to expect his final payment that same day. However at his initial claim interview at local JCP, he had not yet been paid his final wages and he brought it up with JCP advisor who said it would be fine and to leave the answer unchanged, as wages paid in arrears for the previous month’s work would not be counted as income for UC.
UC guidance states quite clearly that your final earnings when you stop work are taken into account in the assessment period in which they are paid. Had client known this, he would have asked to withdraw/delay his claim until he’d received his last pay packet. Had he started claim a week later he could expect to be paid a full month’s UC.
Of course client has now had this month’s income assessment through with 0 entitlement and is rather upset as he was hoping to pay this month’s rent with the UC and now faces arrears.
Had this money been mentioned when he did the initial application, is it likely he would have had to claim JSA as he would not have met the gateway conditions re: expected earnings? Or would he have been told to claim later?
Can he dispute the UC award on the grounds that the assessment period should have begun the day following receipt of his last wage packet due to gateway conditions? Or on the grounds that he was misinformed by JCP advisor? Client is very clear about the specific question on the application that he queried in the face to face interview, and that he was told it wouldn’t affect his UC entitlement.
Additionally client possibly had CB-JSA entitlement. When he became unemployed he went to local JCP, asked to claim and was directed to the online application form for UC, and indeed as soon as you enter a local postcode into the online JSA form it directs you to UC as well. As UC is quite new here I don’t know enough about the application process - does it consider entitlement to conts based JSA at all?
I am thinking now that he has a UC award he’s barred from claiming HB to cover this period even if the UC is nil?
Hi Jacky
My view, unfortunately, is that there is little he can do though am interested to see what others think. The claim has gone in and been processed and he had a payment during the assessment period which will be taken into account. He can’t claim HB as he is on UC as you say. The one thing he can do is claim contJSA which isn’t done as part of the UC claim. He may find it difficult to do because, when he tries, it directs him to UC automatically as you have already seen. He may need to do a phone claim to get round it or go to customer services.
The difficulty of claiming contributory benefits when on UC is something we have raised with both the UC team and the ESA and JSA teams via operational stakeholders but are still waiting a response. I’d be really interested to know how your client gets on and I can feed it back to them.
I also don’t think there is an argument that your client didn’t meet the gateway conditions - I think the condition is that the claimant does not expect to earn more than £338 in the month after the claim is made - see http://www.cpag.org.uk/content/universal-credit-gateway-early-experiences which summarises the gateway conditions.
Sorry not to be more helpful and good luck!
I also don’t think there is an argument that your client didn’t meet the gateway conditions - I think the condition is that the claimant does not expect to earn more than £338 in the month after the claim is made
There may be an argument (how strong I’m not sure) if the wording of the order is carefully considered (I do not have the latest amendments on this laptop. The amount has been uprated but whether the condition has changed, I doubt.).
The version that I have says.
4(1) The claimant is a single claimant, the claimant must declare that, during the period of one month starting with the date on which the claim for universal credit is made, the claimant’s earned income is expected not to exceed £330.
If ‘earned income’ means income earned in that period then ‘No’. But if it means ‘income’ which has been ‘earned’ at some point then might that be different?
On the other hand the condition is that “the claimant must declare” and that has been met. I don’t think that the actual amount, or absence, of earned income matters anyway; just the declaration.
On the topic of earnings at the end of employment. Question raised in recent training session - does any payment made during 7 day waiting period count as it is not paid within AP? My understanding is that it is only income received within AP that counts