New Universal Credit claims: 7 waiting days built in

Hello,

I have never helped anybody to claim UC, and have only seen the application form up to a point (the point at which we get asked to confirm that the information that’s been submitted so far is true….)

However, a colleague completed an online claim with a client on 8th December. At the end of the process, the claimant was advised that their first payment is due to be paid on 21st January 2016.

The claimant was (is) also advised to inform Job Centre Plus at their interview if seven waiting days do not apply, and a list of exceptions is displayed.

This seems a very rum way of doing things, and wonder if anyone has experience of having to fix this after the event (that is, contact DWP to advise that seven waiting days do not apply to the claim after the claimant has been to the initial interview). The claimant in this case told my colleague that they would not have known what any of it meant if they were not being assisted.

I can see the potential for problems, but is it causing a problem for anyone in practice?

Thanks,

L.

There is a problem Lee. My experience was during a discussion with an officer in the UC Housing Team who had rang to get confirmation of rent and service charge for a tenant,  for whom by the way we had no alert that a claim for UC had been made.  I asked for confirmation of the claim start date and was told a date that followed 7 waiting days.  I advised the officer that I was looking at the rent account and housing benefit had been in payment prior to this date, in fact I could also see there was an overlap, so no waiting days should be applied. He then advised they had a request from the LA to repay, would check it and see if the 7 waiting days should be removed. This resulted in moving the assessment period back to the correct date and a payment due to go out immediately.  If we do not have the opportunity to correct the danger is many claims will have waiting days applied and customer will not challenge.

Thanks for replying, sanwyp (are you remaining anonymous?). Hmmmm.  Why would it be difficult for the UC claim form to ask the claimant if any of the exceptions to the waiting days apply? I’m not aware that the claimant has to take any evidence that they have been on (from your example) HB in the month before they claimed, so when/ how is the decision made not to apply the waiting days? Why can’t this information be checked automatically by the DWP during processing? I might be terribly cynical about these things…. but it almost feels like a trap!

Evening Lee,  saw the online claim process today and it specifically asked if customer is claiming HB, CTC, WTC and this must be to enable the DWP to alert LA and Tax Credits so that claims can stop and and overlaps recovered from the first Assessment period. So they should be correctly assessing if waiting days apply. We also had letter today advising HE paid in error to customer even though APA agreed. 
Sandra

So if the person indicates they are on HB, then onus on dwp to confirm with LA HB dept? What if they mistakenly answer this incorrectly, do Dwp follow up? They are still exempt from waiting days?

sanwyp - 11 December 2015 08:47 PM

Evening Lee,  saw the online claim process today and it specifically asked if customer is claiming HB, CTC, WTC and this must be to enable the DWP to alert LA and Tax Credits so that claims can stop and and overlaps recovered from the first Assessment period. So they should be correctly assessing if waiting days apply. We also had letter today advising HE paid in error to customer even though APA agreed. 
Sandra

Hi Sandra,

So the form ask if the claimant is claiming HB/CTC/ WTC rather than asking if he or she has claimed IBJSA/IRESA/ IS/ HB/ CTC/ WTC at some point in the month before the claim date? There are all sorts of reasons why the waiting days shouldn’t apply, and I think that showing those reasons at the end of the claim form and expecting the claimant to advise DWP is a bit much- but as you point out, your client will have answered yes to the question (‘are you claiming HB) and the waiting days (if I’ve understood correctly) were still applied!

Are you going to complain about the payment error?

L.

Email sent to Complaint Resolution Officer today - will update in due course

DWP posted a response to Julia Service’s FOI request on 31/12/2015:

Our Ref:VTR 5168


DATE: 31 December 2015
Annex A





Hi all,

Julia from HB Notes put in an FOI request on the issue of waiting days that we discussed. The response came through on 31/12:

Dear Ms Service,

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request of 11 December 2015. You asked:

“The online claim form for Universal Credit asks if the claimant is in receipt of Housing Benefit
or Tax Credits. Anyone who has been in receipt of a legacy benefit at any time in the month
prior to their claim is exempt from the 7 waiting days. However at the end of a claim the
claimant is told that they will receive their UC award on a date which mans the waiting days
have been applied, even if they answer “yes” to this question.
   
Does this mean that to remove the waiting days requires a manual intervention?
Are there plans (perhaps with the digital claim?) to ensure that the waiting days are
automatically disapplied when this question is answered “yes”?

The Universal Credit IT system automatically applies waiting days exemptions for child or
working tax credit cases. Exemptions for housing benefit are applied manually and there are
no current plans to automate this.

If you have any queries about this letter please contact me quoting the reference number
above. 
Yours sincerely, 


DWP Strategy FoI Team “

No mention of ESA/ JSA/ Fleeing domestic violence etc….

It doesn’t say what course of the action the DWP will take to find out if other exemptions apply so they can be ‘manually’ input.

Hello

I’ve had this reply from local JC+ liaison person: “It transpires that when the online claim is submitted a message is displayed on the confirmation page.

The message says: ‘In some circumstances you may not have to wait 7 days before your entitlement to benefit begins. [Click here] for more information. If you think any of these circumstances may apply to you then please let us know when we call you to book your first appointment or during your first interview’ and if they click the claimant will then be presented with a list of all the exceptions.

There are then two subsequent checks at interview booking point and again as part of the first interview.”

Me:
As the FOI posted by Lee shows, any exemption from the 7 waiting days is not picked up automatically in the online claim process. The 7 waiting day rule was applied after the UC online claim was produced and presumably it would involve a big effort from them to now add it in!  However, it should be worth it as this issue is going to increase along with increased number of UC claims.

Do we accept that the ‘warning’ text and the 3 verbal checks will suffice?

Is it enough for us to let JC+ know if there are any cases of waiting days being applied when they shouldn’t be?

Hi Clive,

We know from customer feedback that the warning text isn’t necessarily going to be sufficient. I can’t say if the verbal checks are or aren’t taking place, but we’ve had one client with waiting days applied incorrectly, now rectified after an intervention (so presumably the checks, if they’re taking place, aren’t fool proof).

I think the clue is in the phrase, ‘...please let us know when we call you….’ Universal Credit is all about claimants taking personal responsibility, after all. Boom boom.

Lee

This continues to be an issue we come across, recent case was a failed ESA medical, customer does not want to appeal. So on two counts 7 days waiting should not be applied, but from claim date and the expected payment date you can see they have applied waiting days. Problem is we can spot it, customers won’t.

sanwyp - 06 January 2016 12:59 PM

Problem is we can spot it, customers won’t.

Exactly.

I have already raised this issue with operational stakeholders but if you can post any examples here or direct message me them I will collate all examples to give to the UC team to see if we can get any changes.

I have just spoken to people in the UC policy team today - it is very frustrating because they cannot (or it is extremely difficult to) make any changes to the live service computer system so all the problems you list above continue. (the digital system on the other hand is updated on a two-weekly cycle).

However, they have asked for examples of where waiting days are not being picked up - either automatically or manually so please can you either post here or message me - the more information I can give them the better.

We continue to have examples of 7 waiting days applied when customer has been in receipt of housing benefit prior to claiming UC. Also 2 cases were the customer hasn’t ticked they pay rent (as they had it all covered by HB) and assume that still happens. Latest one takes the biscuit, during a telephone call with UC Housing Team where they had asked for confirmation of rent and services (we had not been alerted that customer had claimed UC), the officer advised 7 waiting days applied to claim, I advised she had been on HB prior to claim, on low income, the officer then confirmed he had a notification of an overlap of HB and the MAP, so removed the waiting days. I posted this experience on 11th Dec, All went well for 3 months, then this month, they push her MAP period forward 7 days.  When I rang to find out why, was advised the Technical Team had looked at the claim and put the waiting days on. Email from LA re the overlap and a rent statement showing HB in payment duly sent asking them to sort it out.

I have only been looking at real-life UC cases for three weeks and I am finding the 7 waiting days are being routinely applied when there should be an exemption - even in cases where claimant on JSA or ESA in the month prior to claim - so the information is on DWPs own system (unlike HB only cases).

When I have asked the UC Service Centre to amend they have said they will put a note on for the payments team to look at but cant say when this will be amended.  My feeling is that the claimant should still challenge via Mand Recon.

The 7 waiting days being removed at a later date is now causing a problem.  Seems that the claim has to be ‘rebuilt’ on the system, and it shows to the helpline adviser on ‘the screen’ as if it is a new claim.  I have on a couple of occasions now been told that a claim had ended on a certain date and that a new claim had been made.  I had to press the poor helpline advisers a bit to get to the bottom of why claims would end, and it turns out that this is the situation.  It seems not straightforward for the helpline to then see whether the correct entitlement has in fact been paid, and what payments relate to what periods.

Just posting to raise awareness.

I wonder whether this is a “smart strategy to reduce expenditure”

I’m sure of it.. After all, how many UC claimants will be aware of the exemptions to the 7 day rule? I think this is one where conspiracy outweighs cock-up.

very few of my clients get through the gateway just now as most have dla/pip or LCFW but i do have one on UC and a similar thread prompted me to check this and the client had one applied when she shouldnt have.

at least it being on here is doing some good.

SarahJBatty - 18 May 2016 04:51 PM

The 7 waiting days being removed at a later date is now causing a problem.  Seems that the claim has to be ‘rebuilt’ on the system, and it shows to the helpline adviser on ‘the screen’ as if it is a new claim.  I have on a couple of occasions now been told that a claim had ended on a certain date and that a new claim had been made.  I had to press the poor helpline advisers a bit to get to the bottom of why claims would end, and it turns out that this is the situation.  It seems not straightforward for the helpline to then see whether the correct entitlement has in fact been paid, and what payments relate to what periods.

Just posting to raise awareness.

Hi Sarah- this is really useful, thank you.