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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Universal credit administration  →  Thread

amending journal and account records retrospectively….????

Peter Donohue
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Salford Welfare Rights

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Total Posts: 56

Joined: 11 November 2020

UC said to be overpaid due to backdate of CA (actually a reinstatement of CA after false fraud allegations regarding client’s disabled son’s DLA which was suspended for several months - so affecting/ending her own CA).

We only came at this several months into the suspension of the DLA/ending of the CA

The CA amount was still being deducted from UC throughout the period of the CA being suspended (but incidentally no CE being paid)......and client confirmed all this to me (from checking her Journal payment records at the time which showed the CA amount was being taken out and had been each month ).


When CA was eventually put back in place after we managed to get DLA sorted and backdated, UC said she was overpaid - but we pointed out that the CA was being deducted anyway throughout the period ....so no OP could have occurred…......

UC persisted in the overpayment argument!

when we checked her journal and pointed out that the payment record showed this they said the only reason that it showed CA being deducted was because they had “amended” her payment records retrospectively for approx 5-6 months to show CA was being deducted but they had done this ONLY when the CA reinstatement occurred.

no contemporary screenshots unfortunately (obvs we were not involved until later) ........we are now awaiting bank statements to show the CA was ACTUALLY being deducted from UC and that the Journal records do indeed reflect that fact (as opposed to the records having been somehow retrospectively amended as UC would have it)

This is not the first time we have seen journal records being amended “retrospectively” (or claimed to have been altered in such a way)

If UC can simply amend records retrospectively and maintain no record of the contemporary entries (as seems the case/in this instance payment notifications), then how can anyone hope to navigate all this ......there has to be some maladministration here surely?

Any experience or views welcome

Rosie W
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Welfare rights service - Northumberland County Council

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Total Posts: 470

Joined: 9 February 2012

I’ve had a few where the payment statements have been amended retrospectively (usually to show an element which had incorrectly not been in payment). But I’ve never seen an amended journal entry. And they have eventually coughed up the arrears of the underpayment. I think the only way you can get the originals of the payments is via a SAR.