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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Universal credit administration  →  Thread

UC claim closed for leaving country before decision made on claim

Charles
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Accountant, Haffner Hoff Ltd, Manchester

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I have a client whose claim was closed when he notified UC that he was leaving the UK for 10 days during his first AP.

The following was given as the reason:

We cannot pay you Universal Credit from 14 August 2019. This is the start of the assessment period that you became absent from Great Britain. This is because you became absent from Great Britain before your claim from 14 August 2019 was determined.

Does anyone know any sort of justification for this?

Vonny
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Welfare rights adviser - Social Inclusion Unit, Swansea

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could it be main UC regs:

11.—(1) A person’s temporary absence from Great Britain is disregarded in determining whether they meet the basic condition to be in Great Britain if—

(a)the person is entitled to universal credit immediately before the beginning of the period of temporary absence; and
(b)either—
(i)the absence is not expected to exceed, and does not exceed, one month, or
(ii)paragraph (3) or (4) applies.

So by not having been present in UK for the first assessment period he didn’t make it as far as being entitled and so could not have the temporary absence disregarded according to their reading of the regs

Charles
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Accountant, Haffner Hoff Ltd, Manchester

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Thanks, that must be it.

It’s really a vicious circle though, no? There cannot be entitlement unless the first AP is completed, so to be entitled the absence has to be ignored, but for the absence to be ignored you have to be entitled.

Elliot Kent
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You said he left in the first AP - did he return in the first AP also?

Charles
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Accountant, Haffner Hoff Ltd, Manchester

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Yes, he did.

The timeline was:
1. claim made on 14/08/19
2. left country on 28/08/19
3. decision to close claim made on 5/9/19
4. returned to UK on 7/9/19

Elliot Kent
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Hmm..

My initial view is that this is wrong but I will give it some thought and come back to it later…

Elliot Kent
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In general, a change of circumstances is treated as though it had occurred on the first day of the AP in which it occurred. In this case the claimant has at least a presumptive entitlement from 14.08 on but the change of circumstances (i.e. his leaving the country) is backdated to 14.08 rendering him not in the UK at the point of the claim.

But as the claimant also returned to the UK before the AP had ended, this is also a change of circumstances which ought to be backdated to 14.08 and which renders them entitled again - so I think that if the decision maker had left it until the end of the AP to make their decision, there would have been an entitlement for the full AP. I don’t think this relies on reg 11 - the same would be true if the claimant had gone to prison for the same period instead. If we have a change and then an equal and opposite change occurring within the same AP, then nothing happened.

The problem is that the DM has jumped the gun and made their decision before the full facts for the AP were known. Down to the date of the decision on 05.09, the claimant hasn’t returned so any presumptive entitlement from 14.08 to 27.08 is lost and reg 11 doesn’t work. I don’t know that there is anything specifically preventing the DM from deciding the claim without waiting for the first AP to play out, but it does seem like a pretty sharp practice to do so.

I wonder if the DWP would be receptive to an argument that because of the duration of the absence (and particularly if the full duration was notified in advance) the DM should have made no decision at all. Perhaps it could then be treated as set aside and re-decided on the full facts of the AP, I’m not sure.

Charles
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Accountant, Haffner Hoff Ltd, Manchester

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I see what you’re saying. He did notify them of the duration in advance, so I’ll definitely try this. Thank you!

Va1der
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Welfare Rights Officer with SWAMP Glasgow

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Trying to be useful, but may just be misinterpreting the regs.

As I understand reg 39 of UC (decisions and appeals), the DM would be entitled to make a decision based on evidence available at the time, and if the evidence isn’t available, to assume that it is adverse to the client.

Did the claimant provide any evidence that he would be returning before the end of the assessment period? If not, the DM could (rather crudely) have assumed that he would not return in time. Obviously DWP quite frequently don’t take claimants at their word alone…
Did the claimant provide any evidence after he returned? Did he attend at the JCP before the end of the assessment period, for instance? If the evidence was provided in that assessment period I think the decision could be revised to include an award from that period.

Charles
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This issue has come up again.

It appears that in practice, going abroad during the first AP always causes the claim to be closed with no award being made.

Is this other people’s experience as well?

I note that the guidance document linked to below contains the following sections:

https://data.parliament.uk/DepositedPapers/Files/DEP2023-0791/072._Going_Abroad_V9.0.pdf

Claimants must be in Great Britain (GB) on the day the Universal Credit claim was submitted.

If the claimant is abroad when they make a claim for Universal Credit but return within the first assessment period, they will be awarded Universal Credit from the date of declaration.

Although the law states that a claim for Universal Credit must be made from within GB, due to the design of the Universal Credit system, where a claim has been made from outside GB, Universal Credit will still be payable where the claimant returns to GB before the end of the first assessment period.

These slightly contradictory passages are only discussing a case where the claim is made whilst abroad, but jot a case where the claimant goes abroad during the first AP. However, surely it is illogical to allow a claim made whilst abroad, but not allow one where the claimant goes abroad during the first AP.