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New claims for universal credit in live service areas will cease at the end of December 2017
Of note from the bulletin…
4. LAs will need to ask the claimants about any previous Universal Credit claims and see if the claimants are within the 6 month re-award period. There are a number of ways that the LA can find this information:
• speaking to the claimant
• checking the Customer Information System to see if the Universal Credit claim is still in payment
• Universal Credit termination notification for Local Council Tax Reduction
• a copy of the termination notification that the claimant receives.5. Where a claimant terminates their Universal Credit live service claim by choice they will be able to make a new claim to HB straight away. Claimants in full service areas will not be allowed to terminate their claim and make a claim for HB.
I’m puzzled by:
“5. Where a claimant terminates their Universal Credit live service claim by choice they will be able to make a new claim to HB straight away.
Claimants in full service areas will not be allowed to terminate their claim and make a claim for HB. “Where’s the legislative basis for the differentiation? I can see the abolition of HB for them but I’m not clear why they can’t end a claim.
The abolition of HB hasn’t happened anywhere yet, but in UC full service areas new claims for HB are blocked by Article 7 of the WRA 2012 No 23 Commencement Order. At first sight it is not obvious that Article 7 applies anywhere other than the areas originally affected by the No 23 Order, but each time a new area goes to full service Article 7 is modified to extend its geographical reach to the new area. See for example SI 2017/952 which modifies Article 7 every Wednesday until early in the new year.
Whereas in live service, the only thing blocking new HB claims is Reg 6 of the Transitional provisions Regs which says you cannot claim HB if you are on UC or have any UC issues pending/outstanding.
Therefore in a live service area, where Article 7 of the Number 23 Order has no reach, anyone can say to DWP at aby time “Thanks for all the UC, but of it’s all the same to you I’d just as soon not be a claimant anymore. Cheerio.” And then immediately reclaim HB, IS or Tax Credits (or JSA and ESA too, but by a different legal route).
Obviously anyone who wants to can end their UC claim in a full service area as well, there is nothing to force you to have benefits you don’t want. But in full service you wouldn’t be able to claim legacy benefits instead, so there wouldn’t be much point walking away from UC while still entitled.
[ Edited: 14 Dec 2017 at 04:53 pm by HB Anorak ]But there will be lots of situations where a claimant might want to go back to IS, JSA etc i.e to go back to 2 weekly payments if nothing else and presumably they can do this?
So in live service areas all UC claimants could in theory end their claims and go back to legacy benefits and delay the whole UC experience until their area goes onto Full Service and they get migrated?
[ Edited: 15 Dec 2017 at 10:30 am by JoW ]Yes, it’s always been that way. DWP call it elective migration. Only thing that would stop elective migration back to legacy bens in a live service area is if the claimant has ceased/failed to qualify for UC because their earnings were too high within the past six months; and if the person has belonged to a UC couple within the past one month. Other than that it has always been possible to revert to legacy bens in live service.
Even a single jobseeker can do it if they pay rent: as long as they claim HB first, they have a window of opportunity to fail the “existing benefits” gateway condition while the HB claim is pending. A lot of local authorities try to block people doing that, but they are wrong.
Looks like the six months earnings/one month couple split up rules are staying from January - such people can (and indeed must) reclaim UC.
436 jobcentre offices are still awaiting full service roll-out, and so are no longer accepting new live service claims, according to the table accompanying this written answer….