UC backdating and ESA OP

7 June 2021, 11:26 am

Rebecca Lough
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Welfare rights - Greenwich Council

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Total Posts: 226

Joined: 23 November 2018

Hi All

Grateful for thoughts. Client claimed UC due to new housing costs so backdating requested. Expected ESA OP but what they’ve done instead is take it as income in the 2nd AP, leaving client with very minimal payments. 1st UC AP did not deduct anything for ESA. He was last paid ESA on 19th April, amount of £283.

When queried on the journal, they said the following:

The £497 for ESA was taken into account because your universal credit was backdated and for the period it was backdated to, no ESA had been deducted. You were paid £694.89 UC on 05 May to cover the assessment period 15 March to 14 April (the backdated assessment period).
You were also paid £358.21 of PIP on 07 May 2021.

You will next be paid by universal credit on 04 June 2021.

Am I barking up the wrong tree here? I think it should only count what he’s actually been paid and the overpayment should be deducted as an overpayment.

Thank you

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8 June 2021, 10:30 am #1

James Craig
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Welfare Adviser - Young Lives vs Cancer, Hammersmith & Fulham

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Hi Rebecca

I wonder if the DWP think they are applying Reg 10 of the Universal Credit (Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2014, which provides that in some cases a legacy benefit overpayment can be treated as unearned income and deducted from UC entitlement in the AP in which the overpayment occurs.

Problems with the DWP’s approach might be:

a) the Regulation requires that the legacy benefit overpayment is made “in respect of a period during which the claimant is not entitled to that benefit”, whereas at the time your client received the ESA payment they were entitled to it - it’s only the subsequent UC backdating which has turned it into an overpayment;

b) from what you say the ESA payment is being deducted in a different AP from the one in which it was made, which Reg 10 doesn’t seem to allow for.

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