Universal Credit and treatment of arrears of benefit

A person has recently been awarded £3000 arrears of CA following a successful PIP appeal regarding her son, which was backdated.  CA was also backdated for the corresponding period.  UC have amended her claim and inserted CA as unearned income back over the relevant period. They then informed her that she had been overpaid by the full amount. I noticed they had not included any Carers Element for the same period so contacted them and they tried to say that can only apply the carer element from the relevant assessment period which they were notified of the change. This is the date that appeal was won. I argued the odds and a carer element was allowed under ‘special circumstances’ as they call it to cover the whole period.

What I want to know is should they be treating the back pay of CA as monthly income attributed to the whole period or as a one off payment, which would then stop UC credit for just that one month? Or should it even be treated as capital? If it was capital, I don’t think the 12 month disregard would apply but it would be under lower capital limit in any case.

Any suggestions will be welcome.

Martin

I believe they have to recalculate the UC payable from the start of the assessment period in which the Carer’s Allowance (backdated) start date occurred. See ADM paragraph A4220 “in the case of UC where.the claimant . . .becomes entitled to another relevant benefit, ceases to be entitled or the rate of another such benefit alters then the superseding decision takes effect from the first day of the assessment period in which entitlement to the other benefit or an alteration in it’s rate arises or entitlement ends.”

It is correct that the CA is taken into account as income but as this is a backdated supersession it follows, to my mind, that the supersession must take account of all the ways in which the change impacts the calculation of the entitlement which must therefore include the addition of the carer element.

There is still going to have been an overpayment which is recoverable.