WCA not being carried out in UC when person responsible for under 5s - is this an issue?

The Work and Pensions Committee have contacted me as they’ve been made aware of a problem of the WCA not being triggered in UC when the claimant is also responsible for under 5s, and they are interested to know whether this is a widespread problem that it is worth them looking into.

So I would be interested to hear from people if this is an ongoing issue and also, if it is, why it is happening. Is it because the person is reporting health conditions but doesn’t realise they have to submit a fitnote in order for the WCA to be triggered, and the work coach isn’t advising them to do so as the claimant commitment is already reduced? Or is that the UC50 is not being sent out despite fitnotes being submitted? Or something else?

No need for lots of info at this stage - just an idea of whether it is a problem or not. Fine to reply on here and just give an indication of how big or not a problem it is as far as you’re aware.

Thanks :)

This isn’t something I’ve come across.

Of course, now I’ve said that I’m fully expecting tenants to start calling me about it as soon as I click “submit post”.

Thanks Timothy - let me know if you have caused the flood gates to open ;)

On responses I’ve had so far, it appears it may be more just a general issues of getting the WCA triggered under UC - young children may be one reason that gets in the way but there may be others - like not understanding the need to submit a fit note, or failing to issue the UC50. It’s clearly impacting a bit for some but maybe not so much for others?

Any feelings for how much of an issue it is or isn’t are welcome :)

We’ve had a couple of reports of people over SPA being refused WCA’s because they’re “too old”.

I’ve seen a few, namely on the social media pages we looked at before. Although, the issue seems much more prevalent where there are younger children - i.e. where there is automatically no or very little work related requirements. Same goes for CA carers.

Given that it is conceivably primarily an issue of kindly WCs telling claimants they can relax and don’t have to submit fit notes due to their caring responsibilities, I’d wager a guess it is fairly prevalent.

In my experience there is a problem with UC50 forms being sent in timely fashion in general, to such extent that I now routinely advise my clients to make a note in their diary to request and chase up UC50 as soon as one month after submitting a sick note is up. I have been told that the “health journey ” is triggered manually by case managers for those with no WRR. It sounds probable then,  that if case managers are overwhelmed by number of clients allocated to them, this task falls ways down on the list of tneir priorities.

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK - 09 June 2021 02:58 PM

We’ve had a couple of reports of people over SPA being refused WCA’s because they’re “too old”.

Presumably for clients not getting AA/DLA/PIP? Got to love a bit of discrimination.

Daphne
This used to be an issue under IS (back in the ‘good olde days’) when claimants had more than one route to entitlement. So, for example, when a lone parent stopped being responsible for a child / young person for whatever reason IS was unable to identify that the claimant had another route which would allow IS entitlement to continue such as ‘incapable of work’ or a carer.

Perhaps the UC softwear / staff training has similar limitations in being able to identify possible multiple routes to nil/limited conditionality (in addition to not initiating WCA’s etc)?

However, can’t recall identifying any clients with this particular issue with UC.

I had a client today who had already been given LCW for her original medical condition but she then put in medical certificates for her lung cancer and no WCA was triggered. I have had to tell her to put a note in her journal to request a UC50 to allow her CNS complete the back page of the form as she should be found to have LCWRA. They don’t seem to realise that a change in medical condition can trigger a change in benefit and request further information.

Thanks all for your help

Since we seem to have gone off topic in respect of daphne’s original subject heading I will throw in this (which i have mentioned on another thread recently).

Struggled to get DWP to issue UC50 to a client with cancer because they said they couldn’t as she was over earnings threshold. Work Coach and case Manager ignored messages posted by client referring them to relevant regulations and their own guidance on day 1 referrals - when i say ignored I mean they replied but ignored the content. Fortunately I was able to get Vulnerable Leads Co-ordinator to intervene before resorting to MR. However the initial treatment speaks to a lack of training/knowledge (and an unwillingness to engage with information presented to them).