News & Updates
Welcome to our latest newsletter - bringing you right up to date with useful welfare benefit information.
There are several problems connected with UC and turning pension age. Here are a couple of them – with top tips on what to advise.1. When a single UC claimant turns pension age, their UC award stops from the beginning of that Monthly Assessment Period. UC is for working age people and a change in circumstances counts from the beginning of the Monthly Assessment Period (MAP) in which the change occurs.As a result, UC claimants turning pension age can find that they have a huge gap in income as their UC award will end from the beginning of the MAP in which they turn pension age.This means that if they reach pension age towards the end of their MAP, they could lose almost a whole month’s UC – ie money to live on and pay the rent!Not receiving their UC payment on the expected date also comes as an unexpected, unpleasant surprise!Although they will start to receive their State Pension (and might be entitled to Pension Credit and / or Housing Benefit) they will have to wait for these to start being paid - and they would only be awarded from the date they turned pension age. The new State Pension is normally paid within 5 weeks of turning pension age.But did you know that the UC Regulations do allow for a part-month final payment of UC in certain circumstances?The UC, PIP, JSA & ESA Decisions and Appeals Regs 2013, Schedule 1, para 26 allows for a pro-rata payment of UC, for the number of days up to reaching pension age - if the claimant has made an advance claim for Pension Credit.But many claimants are missing out on this because:
or
But this then means that the claimant loses out on their chance of getting their final UC payment! So make sure UC claimants approaching pension age know about making an advance claim for Pension Credit - even if they are unlikely to qualify for it - by making the claim, they satisfy the UC Regulations and can then ask for their pro-rata final UC payment. Anyone who has problems getting the Pension Service to accept their PC claim should make a complaint.We would like to see the rules changed - to allow for an automatic part-MAP final payment of UC - ie removing the need for an advance PC claim. We have already been highlighting this issue.Mark Tami MP has tabled Early Day Motion on this matter – you can ask your local constituency MP to sign it. We have more info on this issue here.2. When the older member of a couple, who has been the main claimant of Income Related ESA for them both, turns pension age On turning pension age their ESA and Housing Benefit will terminate*. The pension age member of the couple will start to receive their State Pension (and possibly other pension income).As a new mixed age couple, they cannot make a claim for Pension Credit or Housing Benefit#.If the pension income is not enough for the couple to live on (and pay their rent), they can try for Universal Credit. The problem is that if they have not already made their claim for UC before the older member turned pension age, their LCW / LCWRA status will not ‘transfer across’ to their UC award.This could mean losing out on over £1000 as they have to start the process again!Or losing the LCW Element forever (if they had been getting the WRAG Component in ESA).We would like to see an amendment to the Regulations to remove this problem – but for now the best advice to couples in this situation is to claim UC before the older member of the couple reaches pension age – so that their LCW/LCWRA status can transfer over to UC.* Unless they 'fail' the SDP Gateway (NOTE: the SDP Gateway no longer applies - it was revoked from 27th January 2021) # If they are living in specified or temporary accommodation - they would claim HB for help with their rent.More details here
Deduction reason
Value of Deductions (£)
UC advance repayments
50,252,000
Tax Credit overpayments
14,295,000
DWP overpayments
8,042,000
Social fund loans
5,466,000
Arrears of rent and/or service charges
5,001,000
Fines
4,931,000
HB overpayments
1,771,000
Arrears of Community Charge or Council Tax
1,285,000
UC Recoverable Hardship payments
843,000
DWP Fraud overpayments
742,000
Fuel and Water Ongoing consumption
615,000
Child maintenance
527,000
Arrears of water charges
273,000
HB and DWP Civil Penalties
121,000
HB Fraud overpayments
113,000
HB and DWP Administrative Penalties
76,000
Arrears of fuel (electric and gas)
67,000
Arrears of Eligible loans
51,000
Arrears of Integration loans
44,000
Tax Credit Fraud overpayments
1,000
Mortgage interest
less than 500
Deductions include advance repayments, third party deductions and all other deductions, but exclude sanctions and fraud penalties which are reductions of benefit rather than deductions.The maximum that can be deducted from a claimant's UC award dropped from 40% to 30% of the claimant's Standard Allowance last year