Universal credit glitch

suzy_g

my daughter sent this to her MP I copy and pasted it so others wont get caught out




s you may know, Universal Credits (UC) is paid on the same date each month.


My payment date for UC is the 6th of the month.


However my payment amount depends on how much money I earned on a monthly basis during what is called an Assessment Period (AP).


My monthly AP runs from the 31st of the month (that’s if there is a 31st) to the 30th (that’s if there is a 30th)


The reason my particular AP runs from those dates is because this happened to be the date that I made my claim online; unfortunately for me this is where the issue arises…


The amount of Universal Credit that I am entitled to each month is £855. The way that UC is calculated is as follows:

• Standard UC allowance: £317.82
• Rent amount per month: £750
• 2 children: £508
• Total amount before adjustments: £1351.57
• Pay from employment: £978 (per month)
• Deductions due to pay -£495.78

(The first £192.00 of take-home pay doesn't affect monthly Universal Credit payments. Every £1.00 earned in take-home pay over this amount reduces Universal Credit by 63 pence)


Therefore my total UC payment each month is: £855


I am paid from my employment on the last day of every month (unless it falls on a weekend in that instance I would be paid on the Friday before). My wages are exactly the same each month.


I received my first every UC payment on the 6th September for £855 which was great as this was as expected. However on the 6th October I only received £239. Which is significantly less than £855 and has put me into a £300 deficit in terms of paying my monthly living expenses.


I rang the UC call centre to query why my payment was so low this time and the lady I spoke with made me an appointment to go into the jobcentre to speak to someone about this.


At the appointment upon looking at my latest UC Statement we discovered that during my Assessment Period (which ran from the 31st August to the 30th September) it picked up 2 of my monthly wages. Therefore my take-home pay during that period was £1957.70.


This also means that the following month the system will not pick up any monthly wages at all.


Looking at a calendar for the whole year it is apparent that this will be an on-going scenario; 1 month I will be paid the correct entitlement of £855, then another month only £239 (due to the system picking up 2 monthly wages), then another month I will be paid £1351 due to the system not picking up any wages at all.


As we know rent, utilities, food etc. are paid for on a monthly basis so it is no use that one month I will receive less in UC and then another month more. It is impossible to budget when my payments are so erratic and inconsistent.


Because of this I am now in a deficit this month and have no other option but to see a lender to borrow money. Surely Universal Credits were not designed force people into debt?


I am very unfortunate that my particular Assessment Period runs from the 31st to the 30th of every calendar month. There would not be an issue if I had made my online claim just 2 days later. This is also problematic due to the fact that some months do not necessarily have a 31st or 30th.


The work coach at the job centre appointment agreed that this was not acceptable so he escalated my case to the RTI dispute team to look into.


This issue can be easily corrected by simply adjusting my AP by a couple of days so that it runs from the 2nd to the 1st of every month. This way it will only ever pick up 1 month’s wages in each AP.


These are my predicted UC payments for the year, starting from my first payment in September...


1. (AP 31/07/17 - 30/08/17) £855


2. (AP 31/08/17 - 29/09/17) £239


3. (AP 30/09/17 - 30/10/17) £1351


4. (AP 31/10/17 - 30/11/17) £239


5. (AP 01/12/17 - 30/12/17) £855


6. (AP 31/12/17 - 30/01/18) £1351


7. (AP 31/01/18 - 28/02/18) £239


8. (AP 01/03/18 - 30/03/18) £855


9. (AP 31/03/18 - 30/04/18) £855


10. (AP 01/05/18 - 30/05/18) £1351


11. (AP 31/05/18 - 30/06/18) £239


12. (AP 01/07/18 - 30/07/18) £1351





Over the space of a year this makes a grand total of £9779 in UC payments, however, if I were to be paid £855 every month which is what I am entitled to, that would make a grand total of £10,260 over the year. As you can see I am going to be £481 worse off.


This highlights the following scenario:


There are 2 different claimants who have exactly the same set of circumstances. However claimant 1 just so happened to visit the UC website on the 31st of the month therefore their AP runs from the 31st to the 30th.


Claimant 2 visits the website just 2 days later so their AP runs from the 2nd to the 1st of every month.


Claimant 1 will be paid erratically and receive £481 less over the space of the year in UC payments than the Claimant 2 even though their circumstances are exactly the same. In the interest of fairness and equality; how can this be allowed to happen?


The RTI dispute team have now been in touch to inform me that unfortunately the dispute has not been upheld and they cannot change my AP dates but no explanation was given.


I now have no faith in the system and feel frustrated that no one is willing to acknowledge and rectify this obvious flaw in the system.
Universal Credits were brought in to replace other benefits to simplify the whole system and to realistically reflect the world of employment by making regular monthly payments to claimants. This is not the case for me and I am sure there will be others around the country

Icequeen99

Unfortunately, this is an excellent example of how the RTI feed can cause problems. This is how the system was set up and many people, myself included, have been flagging this up as a problem area for people.

IQ

suzy_g

sorry what's RTI feed

Icequeen99

Sorry, RTI is real time information. That is the system used by employers to report pay information HMRC for tax, and there is a feed of information from HMRC to DWP for Universal Credit based on the RTI data.

IQ

suzy_g

This glitch is so easy to remedy ,and most people who work like my daughter are paid wages at the end of the month, and yet UC still process claims on the 31 st for these people ? most of them have already waited at least six weeks putting them on the back foot already them giving them erratic payments how are they to budget without borrowing .

elmer

RTI can also cause similar problems with Housing Benefit, especially in February


elmer

w06

That's a barmy thing to have been overlooked in designing the system, especially a system that's supposed to support back into and in work where most people are paid at a fixed point that will move by a day or two on occasion. My pay day has always been last thurs of the month which would cause a similar problem.

annandale

I don't think it's a glitch. It very much depends on the date you make your claim for universal credit. It's unfair that she's worse off over the year but lots of people are being affected in the same way ie getting two pays in one assessment period.

konark

annandale wrote: »

I don't think it's a glitch. It very much depends on the date you make your claim for universal credit. It's unfair that she's worse off over the year but lots of people are being affected in the same way ie getting two pays in one assessment period.

It's not a glitch, it's a train-wreck. God knows how much the Govt has spent on a computer system that is not fit for purpose and can't cope with basic concepts like the different number of days in a month..

Apparently the computer people who have designed the system have been crowing about their 'achievement' as 'state of the art' ; they should all be sacked and given a taste of how their creation works.

suzy_g

konark wrote: »

It's not a glitch, it's a train-wreck. God knows how much the Govt has spent on a computer system that is not fit for purpose and can't cope with basic concepts like the different number of days in a month..

Apparently the computer people who have designed the system have been crowing about their 'achievement' as 'state of the art' ; they should all be sacked and given a taste of how their creation works.

Exactly and its such a simply fix . And I expect they still are not warning other would be claimants that they should not sign up on the end of the month as there money will get f&&kd up every single month and they will get paid quite a bit less :mad:

Ci_bach

Interestingly - I was speaking to a friend today who is in the process of claiming their State Retirement Pension.

Unclear if it was a paper form or not. She was asked to insert the details of her nominated bank account into which she wished to have the pension paid and also to select a date between between the 1st and the 28th of the month she would like it paid.[

So seemingly this 'anomaly' has been recognised as far as pensions are concerned.

Can anyone suggest why it was not catered for with UC awards?
(I will now go away and try to take my teeth out of my tongue!)

CB