Moving from Universal Credit to Pension Credit

Client currently receiving Universal Credit but has reach women’s SPA so is eligible to claim Pension Credit now.

He’s spoken to the ever helpful (sic) Pension Service, who have told him that unless he supplies proof that his UC claim is closed, they won’t accept a PC claim. This is, they say, because UC and PC cannot be claimed at the same time (which is true but is also something that DWP should be able to administer accordingly in my very humble opinion).

Aside from the unlawfullness of the Pension Service refusing to accept a claim, I’m thinking from a practical perspective how he might proceed as follows and would appreciate any thoughts as to whether this makes sense?

Find out date of the end of the next AIP for UC, send PC claim with intention to claim PC from the next day after this and with screen shot of UC journal entry asking for UC claim to be closed from the end date of AIP.

Also to submit HB claim on the same basis.

Does this seem sensible? Given we’re going to start having thousands more people in this position in the future, I intend to take this up with policy colleagues as to how this might work more efficiently and less computer says no in the future, but I’d like to try and ensure this client’s transition is as stress-free as possible.

Thanks in advance as always.

Well surely he isn’t entitled to UC anymore: assuming he is single he now fails to meet the basic condition in s4(1)(b) of the WRA 2012.  He is immediately entitled to SPC subject to the normal means test.  It appears that he has to make a claim for it (not excused by Reg 3 of the 1987 C&P Regs), but Reg 16A of those Regs guarantees seamless entitlement.  It’s not down to him to stop the UC claim upon reaching SPC age - DWP should kind of know that

And people can claim Pension Credit in Advance to avoid a gap between UC and PC - if they had to notify Pension Service of UC claiming they wouldn’t have this facility

The Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment, Jobseeker’s Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance (Decisions and Appeals) Regulations 2013 Schedule 1 para 26

26.  Where, in any assessment period, a claimant—
(a)reaches the qualifying age for state pension credit under the State Pension Credit Act 2002; and

(b)has made an advance claim for an award of state pension credit,

a superseding decision made in consequence of the person reaching that age takes effect on the date on which that change of circumstances occurs or is expected to occur.

Thanks very much both,  much appreciated, I thought I was missing something obvious here.

So their PC should! be ok, but what if they become pension age on tuesday but HB can’t start until the following Monday?

How does that work with monthly assessment periods?  Say an assessment period runs from the 15th to the 14 of each month, and a client reaches Pension Credit age on 6th May.  Will their UC claim end on 5th May, and if so will they receive any UC for the period 15th April to 5th May?

Cordelia - 19 April 2018 12:08 PM

How does that work with monthly assessment periods?  Say an assessment period runs from the 15th to the 14 of each month, and a client reaches Pension Credit age on 6th May.  Will their UC claim end on 5th May, and if so will they receive any UC for the period 15th April to 5th May?

A colleague has just asked this very question re assessment periods and moving on from UC to SPC when they reach SP qualifying age mid-assessment period. Can anyone shed any light on this?

I’ve been asking DWP for months now to share with us the procedures and policies about how they intend to deal with people moving from UC onto PC but haven’t managed to get anywhere to date.

I don’t know the answer to the question posed either I’m afraid but would love to know it.

The Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment, Jobseeker’s Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance (Decisions and Appeals) Regulations 2013 Schedule 1 para 26 states:

26.  Where, in any [UC] assessment period, a claimant—

(a) reaches the qualifying age for state pension credit under the State Pension Credit Act 2002; and

(b) has made an advance claim for an award of state pension credit,

a superseding decision made in consequence of the person reaching that age takes effect on the date on which that change of circumstances occurs or is expected to occur.

CPAG indicates that a supersession for UC takes effect from the first date of the assessment period within which a change of circumstances takes place, which could mean people possibly losing up to a month’s UC entitlement, which intuitively feels wrong. The above also only applies if an advance claim for PC is made.

Credit for this one goes to my UC penpal who unfortunately doesn’t have access to post on the forum.  I don’t think I would ever have stumbled across this by chance.

The answer to the question about how UC is assessed for the AP in which the SPC date falls can be found in Reg 47(7) of the 2013 Claims and Payment Regs.  What it is doing there I have no idea - strange piece of drafting, somewhere between Regs 21-22 of the principal UC Regs would have been a more natural choice I would have thought.  But it says that the part month up to the date the claimant reaches SPC age is treated as if it were a full AP, but the resulting award is them reduced pro rata.  This can produce a small windfall if regular earnings would have been due later in the month, because the earnings will be absent from the “squashed” AP.

Excellent, thanks so much for this Peter, very helpful indeed.

Thank you! This is really helpful to know

Sorry if this is on a thread somewhere but can’t find anything in the housing discussion thread.

At the end of the assessment period as HBA states above, because of Reg 47(7) of the 2013 Claims and Payment Regs the award is apportioned but the assessment period stays the same so ends at the same day as usual. Now got a case, I’m trying to make sense of, UC ended 29/03/19 but claimant became of pension age on 06/03/2019.

PCGC awarded from the same date so overlaps UC (But not really reading how reg 47(7) works) the problem is that the housing allowance, personal allowance and UC payment didn’t change, so makes me wonder if this was some kind of error? HB has been paid from 29/04/2019, when should HB start?

Thanks in advance

When was the claim for PC made? Was it made in advance of turning pension-age?

Charles - 12 June 2019 05:36 PM

When was the claim for PC made? Was it made in advance of turning pension-age?

Hi Charles, yes, it was made on 04/03/2019, thanks.

So it sounds like this is a UC error. UC should have ended 05/03/2019, and been pro-rated as explained earlier in the thread.

The PC award is correct, and HB should have been backdated to 06/03/2019.