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UC and carers issues
Hi folks,
I have recently been referred a slew of cases involving mucked up UC calculations for people who are caring for others newly entitled to PIP. Obviously the PIP awards are backdated and the claimants are asking for CA/CE from the date entitlement began.
Typically the issues seem to be either:
(1) New carer has claimed carers allowance backdated to the start of the PIP award. UC creates an overpayment but fails to offset the carers element which is necessarily payable for the same period against the overpayment.
(2) New carer requesting carers element from date PIP entitlement begins and generally receiving pushback - requests for why they were late in reporting the change, refusal to backdate, failure to put the matter to a decision maker etc.
In today’s case, we are getting into a somewhat surreal argument where a case manager is insisting that the carers element has been backdated and paid when the written records make very clear that it hasn’t been.
All of this is needlessly increasing my blood pressure - surely it should be straightforward to sort these things out?
Is this just my bad luck?
[ Edited: 25 Nov 2020 at 08:01 pm by Elliot Kent ]Must admit that I have not had any of these recently but a year or two ago it was common. An endless cycle of phone calls and journal entries. Even worse when someone has moved from ESA to UC in the intervening period and they were also involved; ESA seemed to practice pathological demand avoidance when it came to liaising with the CAU.
Thanks Elliot, we’ve seen a few of these in CPAG’s Early Warning System. Essentially the DWP tells claimants that they can’t revise the UC award in their favour because they were “too late notifying a change of circumstances”. I’ll be digging them out to check the advice given/outcome in due course.
I’ve flagged this issue for more work (potentially with DWP or in upcoming reports) as soon as time allows, but in the meantime, do let me know if you’d like to collate evidence! .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Universal Credit supersessions is a top topic in the Early Warning System this month, so our next e-bulletin (due to be mailed out next week) will be covering it. Do subscribe to our e-bulletin to see examples of what we’re seeing and legal/practical solutions (which I’m currently researching!)