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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Universal credit administration  →  Thread

Why do Universal Credit ask for past income details and whether someone has lived with a partner previously?

CAAdviser
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I had thought this was to consider whether the benefit cap grace period applied or not but I have seen claimants for whom the benefit cap doesn’t apply at all asked these questions.

Sure I am missing something obvious but why do UC ask for this information?

KMJones
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My first thought was benefit cap grace period too…

Maybe compliance? Some benefit claimants can be ear marked for investigation if they have a drastic drop in income after sustained period of comparably high earnings?

May be worth an FOI request.  In the meantime, could you submit details of individual cases to our Early Warning System?  I’ll ask DWP at our next meeting if we have a good number of cases where this is happening.

https://cpag.org.uk/policy-campaigns/early-warning-system

Charles
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I think you’re right, it’s for the benefit cap exemption.
I think the work coaches get told to ask the questions in all cases, rather than getting them to first decide if it’s relevant or not.

CAAdviser
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KMJones - 06 March 2020 10:42 AM

My first thought was benefit cap grace period too…

Maybe compliance? Some benefit claimants can be ear marked for investigation if they have a drastic drop in income after sustained period of comparably high earnings?

May be worth an FOI request.  In the meantime, could you submit details of individual cases to our Early Warning System?  I’ll ask DWP at our next meeting if we have a good number of cases where this is happening.

https://cpag.org.uk/policy-campaigns/early-warning-system

Thanks for your reply, and glad I am not missing something obvious!

I have submitted details of the most recent case as requested and will send any others I come across.. I will forward your request to my colleagues.

We have also had a case where a client appears to have had their UC declined altogether because they couldn’t evidence income received PRIOR to their claim being made.  We are still looking into this one but will also submit details of this if this turns out to be the case.

CAAdviser
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Charles - 06 March 2020 10:43 AM

I think you’re right, it’s for the benefit cap exemption.
I think the work coaches get told to ask the questions in all cases, rather than getting them to first decide if it’s relevant or not.

In my experience, it seems to automatically be appearing on some client’s journals as soon as a claim has been submitted….

Carolyn McA
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Jobcentre staff told my Help to Claim colleague that it’s about the benefit cap exemption. In my experience the ‘confirm previous earnings’ form is always generated when a claim is submitted with the ‘yes’ box ticked in answer to ‘Have you stopped work in the last nine months?’; as has been pointed out, there’s no screening for clients for whom this won’t be relevant (here in Fife where rents are generally low this is the overwhelming majority).
It’s another of many examples of the crudity of the UC IT system.

Gareth Morgan
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It would also apply to surplus earnings cases where status over previous 6 months affects the calculations.

KMJones
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I’m particularly interested to hear about these earnings reviews happening well into the UC claim - apparently annually. 

It’s strange that the DWP requires evidence of income for the preceding year when all earnings have been reported for that period through the *seamless* real time information system.

They should already have the information they need to decide whether the benefit cap or surplus earnings rules apply.

Is there some other audit process in play here? Or another automated glitch?

Tom B (WRAMAS)
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I have seen this request in a UC account - we were expecting it in relation to the grace period exemption so no issues there however I was confused by the format of the request - it asked for earnings information in relation to calendar months. Does that chime with everyone’s understanding of how the grace period exemption would be applied in UC?

From a cursory look at reg 82 beforehand I had expected to be asked for information in relation to hypothetical assessment periods going backwards from the start of the UC claim.

As it happens, our client would have been exempt either way and all was resolved at MR so there was no need to investigate further but I’d be interested to hear if the ‘calendar month’ interpretation is correct.

Gareth Morgan
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tbidmead - 10 March 2020 02:54 PM

I have seen this request in a UC account - we were expecting it in relation to the grace period exemption so no issues there however I was confused by the format of the request - it asked for earnings information in relation to calendar months. Does that chime with everyone’s understanding of how the grace period exemption would be applied in UC?

From a cursory look at reg 82 beforehand I had expected to be asked for information in relation to hypothetical assessment periods going backwards from the start of the UC claim..

As far as surplus earnings go, then the AP dates should be the same and are what should be used.

Charles
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Regarding surplus earnings, I think the 2018 changes (that only a reclaim can reduce the surplus earnings) were made so that they would not be required to find out past earnings details.

I therefore assume that the “work-around” mentioned recently on another thread of opening up a new UC account for the reclaim would work for this too!

There will be a limited amount of cases where the old claim ends for a reason other than surplus earnings, but there happens to also be surplus earnings in the next month. I have no idea if the system would pick up on that or not.

I recently had a case where there was an RTI issue, and it appeared they had very high earnings for January. The claimant raised an RTI dispute which was promptly acted upon, and they received their money for that AP. However, the following AP still included surplus earnings from the previous month! So there is certainly a large amount of (badly thought out) automation going on for this.

Clara
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HI not sure if I should post this here or on the discussion about the benefit cap so sorry if this is the wrong place.

My client was paid weekly, minimum wage 16 hours per week.  She gave up work on 17 April because of issues of violence from her ex partner who was associated with the employer.  She also has childcare issues during the virus crisis and she has four children.

My question is about the grace period and how the earnings are calculated for the 12 month period.  If she was paid weekly won’t she have some months that are below the threshold?  She has been capped but we thought she would get a grace period.

She was on legacy benefits and in the same job with the same hours for more than a year so was never capped on legacy.  But I am wondering whether the calendar monthly calculation of earnings received under UC will catch her out, which means that everyone paid weekly on the minimum wage is automatically unable to qualify for a grace period even though that is how the threshold is calculated.

There is another problem because there are 17 days in April by which time the threshold had increased I can’t find how this will be treated either.

She had the same 12 month form to complete, mentioned above. that just asked for earnings for April, May etc to March 2020.  We divided her annual take home by 12 to complete that. Does anyone know how they will actually calculate the earnings and might it need a challenge with reference to Johnson?

Elliot Kent
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Hi Clara,

I’m glad you raised this as I had a similar issue recently.

The strictures of the Universal Credit assessment periods and RTI feeds don’t seem to apply to deciding whether someone qualifies for the grace period. They just need to be able to draw a period of 12 months during which their monthly income was 16NMW * 52 / 12. It shouldn’t matter when exactly their pay dates were, provided that they can sensibly say their income was above the threshold. So your client should qualify for the grace period.

This highlights a problem with the way that data is collected for the purposes of establishing whether a grace period applies on a new claim. The DWP will give a list of previous months and will state the claimant’s earnings for that month. It is possible that this could give the impression that the grace period should not apply when it should.

For example your case might register as:

June 2019 £558.08
July 2019 £697.60
August 2019 £558.08
September 2019 £697.60
October 2019 £558.08
November 2019 £558.08
December 2019 £697.60
January 2020 £558.08
February 2020 £558.08
March 2020 £697.60
April 2020 £558.08
May 2020 £558.08

Which creates the misleading impression that your client was below the £604.59 threshold and not entitled to the grace period when really she is.

The form forces you to arbitrarily assign earnings to each calendar month but this distracts from the decision maker’s job which is to look at the 12 month period as a whole. It’s a similar logical error to the “53 week year” which housing providers are constantly vexed by.

[ Edited: 12 Jun 2020 at 06:22 pm by Elliot Kent ]
davidsmithp1000
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Clara
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Hi many thanks Elliot and David,

The question you refer to is here David

https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2020-06-08/56083/

I am hoping that this is referring to a situation where earnings have actually fluctuated rather than been caught by the problem of calculating weekly earnings in assessment periods.  We have these cases too and I think I will see if we can challenge them all.

I am waiting for a response from UC.