Early payments with Bank Holidays

Hi All,

Hoping someone can help.

We have a client who works Part Time and gets an additional UC entitlement including full Housing Costs for her rent. Her assessment date is the 25th of each month and usually gets paid on the 28th. Due to the bank hols she got paid early and consequently she lost a large amount of her UC including the Housing Costs part as they saw her as having greater income for that month.

For next month as she’s been paid early there will be no employment income taken into account however her housing costs will only be paid to the maximum LHA rate (she’s a private rented tenant). This has left her £500 down on this payment as she’s lost £300 housing costs and £200 of her own UC. Is there an appeal with regards to the housing costs element as she’s now significantly down in arrears only through being paid early. We have spoken to UC and they said there is little they can do and wondered if anyone has any ideas?

All help greatly appreciated!

I think this is just how UC is meant to work.

May be a case for a DHP?

I think this is an employer caused problem with RTI reporting and the UC DM not applying the regs correctly.

Reg 61 of the UC regs

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/376/regulation/61

Amended by

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/2888/regulation/4/made

addresses this scenario I think - the wages may be paid early if it’s a non-banking day but the wage slip will have the date they’re actually due - i.e. the bank holiday.

The PAYE regs dictate what the employer is to do.

I found the following professional HR advice that supports the above

Change Of Pay Date
If an employee’s regular pay day falls on a non-banking day in the holiday period, and therefore chooses to pay the employee on the last banking day before or the next banking day after the regular payday, HMRC instruct employers to treat the payment for PAYE purposes as if they had been made on the regular pay day. The payday reported on the RTI FPS submission is the regular pay day and not any adjusted pay date. The same principle applied to National Insurance Contributions.

For example, it the regular pay date would be 25 December and the payment is brought forward to 24 December instead, the FPS should show the regular date of 25 December.

https://www.ceridian.co.uk/connection/articles/christmas-benefits-tax

FPA = Full Payment Submission http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/pommanual/paye55001.htm#IDANE4LD

and

https://www.gov.uk/running-payroll/reporting-to-hmrc

The amended reg 61 - specifically 4(4) of The Universal Credit and Miscellaneous Amendments (No.2) Regulations 2014 - lets the DM use their initiative to remedy the issue.

4(4) Where the Secretary of State determines that paragraph (2) does not apply, the Secretary of State must make a decision as to the amount of the person’s employed earnings for the assessment period in accordance with regulation 55 (employed earnings) using such information or evidence as the Secretary of State thinks fit.

I think that’s right.

FPS not FPA