Glitch in Universal Credits System! – erratic UC payments. A warning to others…

Forestgump

Hi I just thought I would write this post to highlight yet another error in the Universal Credits System.

When you initially visit the website and put in a claim using their online system there needs to be a warning to people which informs them that if they do this on either the 29th, 30th or 31st of the month it will result in erratic UC payments every single month.

Unfortunately because I didn’t have a crystal ball at the time of making my claim I am now stuck in a ‘loophole’ which evidently no one in the DWP can fix. If I had known about this I would have waited a few more days and logged onto the system to make my claim on let’s say the 2nd of the month for example.

Here is a more detailed explanation…

I am not a complicated claimant; I am paid by my employer calendar monthly on the last working day of the month. This is not unusual, I would guess 90% or employees are paid this way. I am paid exactly the same amount every month and have been employed by the same employers (Somerset County Council) for over 13 years.

I have had to claim universal credits because I have recently separated from my husband so now only have 1 income coming into the home with 2 young children. I work full-time at a school and I am on a low income.
As you may, or may not know, Universal Credits (UC) is paid monthly on the same date every month.

Your payment amount depends on how much money you earn on a monthly basis during what is called an Assessment Period (AP).
My particular 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
Therefore my total UC payment each month is: £855

I received my very first every UC payment on the 6th September for £855 which was fine. However the following month on the 6th October I only received £239. Which is clearly £616 less and has put me into a £300+ deficit in terms of paying our monthly living expenses.

I rang the UC helpline to query why my payment was so low this time and the agent I spoke with made an appointment for me to go into the jobcentre to speak to a UC ‘work coach’ about my situation.

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 is not a realistic reflection of my wages as they are to last me for both September AND October.

This also means that the following month the system will not pick up any monthly wages at all therefore I will be paid more in UC. However not £616 more, only £490 because of the maximum that you can be paid on UC so I am over £100 worse off every time this happens.

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, then another month less due to the system picking up 2 monthly wages, then another month I will be paid more due to the system not picking up any wages at all.

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 less money in UC payments than Claimant 2 even though their circumstances are exactly the same. In the interest of fairness and equality; how can this be allowed to happen?

I could probably cope financially if this anomaly was to occur just once per year (which happens if you are paid wages in 4 weekly cycles) but for this to happen every single month is really unfair and will force me further and further into debt.

Rent, food utilities, etc. are obviously paid for on a monthly basis so it is not helpful 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. I have already started off on the back foot because the lesser payment has come prior the bigger payment so am always behind, struggling to catch up, that's on top of having to wait 6 weeks to receive my first payment, so had no money throughout the whole of August.

This issue could 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. But apparently ‘computer says no’ this isn’t possible.

I have also asked whether I could simply close my claim then restart my claim on the 2nd of the month, but I was informed if I did this, apparently the system will still use my original claim date as this stays on their system for 6 months!

They have suggested that I speak to my employers and request that they change my payment dates! I work for Somerset County Council who are not going to overhaul their entire payroll system just for me. Besides why should they? This isn’t an issue with the dates that they pay me, the error lies with the Assessment Period dates that UC have issued me with.

I am now stuck in this loophole which was overlooked when this system was set up. No one at the DWP knows how to fix this or cares! They treat everybody as if they are stupid.

I just thought I would let others know, so they can avoid this situation.

suzy_g

This is such a simple fix at there end, stop people in this situation starting claims in the 29th 30th 31st and amend people claims to start on the 28th or first of the month.