HB and self employed ( UC issues)

It may just be me but I have noticed a disproportionate number of self employed individuals, whom have year on year submitted their earning details to HB are now facing unprecedented scrutiny.

Even when a person submits details that have historically been accepted by HB, they are now insisting on further and better particulars which in many cases are either arguably irrelevant or virtually impossible to prove.

This from what I have observed causes the claim to either be suspended or in many cases stopped and the advice from HB to the individual is ” claim UC”.

has a new directive been given to HB on scrutiny or does my cynicism smell a concerted push to UC without the managed protections.

There has been a lot of talk of this recently, with the government encouraging increased checks on self-employed people. I don’t think UC migration is a factor! See for example here.

As the link posted by Charles says, there has been a national push from Govt to review self-employed HB cases (with some additional funding).

Of course, exactly how it is done is likely to be the issue.  As far as my LA is concerned it was about looking at cases which had not been reviewed for some time and making sure we had up-to-date data on people’s profit and loss and correct income figures.  Certainly NOT about digging up “ancient history”, and creating loads of additional work for little value.