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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Benefits for older people  →  Thread

Moving between UC and SPC/HB - gap in entitlement

JPCHC
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Cardinal Hume Centre - Welfare Rights

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Clt turned State Retirement Age during the UC Assessment Period (AP) but he didn’t make an advance claim for Pension Credit so his entitlement ended from the beginning of the assessment period.  His HB/SPC didn’t start until he reached state pension age so he’s left with a 2/3 week gap in entitlement and rent arrears for this period.  I understand this is how it should work, but is it really just a case of ‘hard luck’?! It just seems so outrageous!

Thanks in advance

Charles
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Accountant, Haffner Hoff Ltd, Manchester

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I agree it’s not very fair.

You could perhaps try and get the HB backdated to the day after the end of the last UC assessment period.
From the point of view of the UC full service legislation, this would work (see Art. 7(8) of the No. 23 Commencement Order).
However, the interaction between the different ways the two sets of HB Regs deal with backdating make it slightly doubtful as to whether it would work.

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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Information and advice resources - Age UK

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We’ve been raising this problem with DWP colleagues for a number of months and I share your frustration that this situation still occurs. As it’s purdah, not even sure you can ask your MP to raise this with DWP.

HB Anorak
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However, the interaction between the different ways the two sets of HB Regs deal with backdating make it slightly doubtful as to whether it would work.

Agreed, this makes my brain hurt.  In the HB(SPC) Regs, there is a three-month time limit to claim which runs from any day when you might be entitled to HB. This is a prospective time limit and therefore I think the day of entitlement must be one on which HB would be determined under the HB(SPC) Regs - so that isn’t going to plug the gap between the end of UC and the start of pensioner benefits.

As for the working age regs, they have a backdating provision that looks backwards from the day on which the claim was made: the claim is treated as if was made on an earlier date.  But can that claim be physically made on a date when the working age regs no longer apply?

It might be possible to argue that HB (SPC) Reg 64(11) and (12) contemplates one set of HB regs reaching across into the domain of the other set (this provides for an advance claim by someone approaching SPC age), and a working age backdate relying on a claim made after reaching SPC age is the exact mirror image of those paragraphs … but then the counter-argument would be Reg 64(11) and (12) includes a specific provision to vary the normal age scope of the HB(SPC) Regs in those circumstances.  In the absence of any such variation provision in the working age regs they just cannot apply at all to someone who has reached SPC age.

This is not a new UC-related phenomenon - I have seen a few cases down the years in which the claimant would be able to establish good cause for failing to claim HB shortly before reaching SPC age, but did not make the claim until after reaching SPC age.  The maximum backdating period used to be 52 weeks, then six months, then finally it was cut to one month so there was more at stake in the old days.  But I think the UC change of circs rule where there is no advance claim has brought this longstanding problem to prominence.

I honestly don’t know what the right answer is.  As I say, it makes my brain hurt.

Charles
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HB Anorak - 21 November 2019 10:27 AM

Agreed, this makes my brain hurt.  In the HB(SPC) Regs, there is a three-month time limit to claim which runs from any day when you might be entitled to HB. This is a prospective time limit and therefore I think the day of entitlement must be one on which HB would be determined under the HB(SPC) Regs - so that isn’t going to plug the gap between the end of UC and the start of pensioner benefits.

As for the working age regs, they have a backdating provision that looks backwards from the day on which the claim was made: the claim is treated as if was made on an earlier date.  But can that claim be physically made on a date when the working age regs no longer apply?

It might be possible to argue that HB (SPC) Reg 64(11) and (12) contemplates one set of HB regs reaching across into the domain of the other set (this provides for an advance claim by someone approaching SPC age), and a working age backdate relying on a claim made after reaching SPC age is the exact mirror image of those paragraphs … but then the counter-argument would be Reg 64(11) and (12) includes a specific provision to vary the normal age scope of the HB(SPC) Regs in those circumstances.  In the absence of any such variation provision in the working age regs they just cannot apply at all to someone who has reached SPC age.

This is not a new UC-related phenomenon - I have seen a few cases down the years in which the claimant would be able to establish good cause for failing to claim HB shortly before reaching SPC age, but did not make the claim until after reaching SPC age.  The maximum backdating period used to be 52 weeks, then six months, then finally it was cut to one month so there was more at stake in the old days.  But I think the UC change of circs rule where there is no advance claim has brought this longstanding problem to prominence.

I honestly don’t know what the right answer is.  As I say, it makes my brain hurt.

This was precisely my train of thought! I’d be interested to hear what the result was in the cases you’ve had in the past - did the LAs agree to backdate?

HB Anorak
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Not usually - I think the approach most local authorities prefer is that you cannot have a new award of HB under one set of regs based on a claim made under the other volume - the award must at least begin under the same regs that governed the claim.  But there is no definitive answer that I know of