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UC: Housing costs and waiting days
What is the position with Universal Credit and the housing element with the introduction of the seven day waiting period. Does this effectively introduce a waiting period for what was housing benefit.
Unfortunately it does, the seven waiting days applies to all elements of the UC claim.
When you consider that UC will be paid monthly in arrears it means someone will have to wait up to 38 days for payment, to then find they’re a week short due to the waiting days. Could cause problems with rent arraears
Only 38 days? I have been advised by UC Policy Department that the 7 waiting days are before the assessment period (then of course there is the 7 days for UC to be administered and paid), so more like 46 days if the month has 31 days! I would love to be proved wrong - please? Here is what they said
‘The waiting days proposals are that the 7 day waiting period follows the date of claim. The complete assessment period of one month starts from the 8th day after the claim which is the first day of entitlement’.
It’s been delayed to July, maybe it will never happen????
That is indeed how the draft regs read:
Reg 21 is amended so that the AP begins after the seven waiting days, those days do not appear to fall within the AP.
By the way I made the mistake of not reading this thoroughly enough at first and concluded that it only aplies to people in the full work search conditionality group but then I noticed draft Reg 19A(2) which makes the waiting days aply to the UC equivalent of the ESA work-related activity group. At least they have given themselves plenty of time to establish whether the claimant is exempt from s22 work seeking for any other reason by the time the first payment is made
We believe in a perfect world (tongue firmly in cheek) the quickest payment will be 42 days (6 weeks), the first 7 days are not eligible, then the next month is the assessment period( some months 5weeks), then payment arrives 7 days after the end of the assessment period. So if no hold ups (tongue still firmly in cheek) 42 days.
Statement from Paul Gray, Chair of the SSAC, says the implementation of the 7 waiting days is being delayed until 1st July 2015 (was supposed to be introduced on 27th April). Statement can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/universal-credit-waiting-days-implementation-date-revised