Council tax support and universal credit are a nightmare each month

hettyGreek

UC seems to notify council tax that there has been a change in award every month. But don't actually give the value to the council tax.

So every month I get two automatic letters fired off that something has changed and i need to print off and post a copy of my UC award. Then they often don't understand the UC award, mess up the council tax and several letters later and phonecalls its just about sorted out then the process starts again with the next month. I've already overpaid by hundreds this council tax year as they keep not backdating the correction if it's in their favour but if they decide that I've overpaid then they do backdate it. It's so much work for not really that much money.

Does anyone else have this issue every single month?

marliepanda

Cancel your claim?

UC doesn’t notify councils of amounts. They can access pretty much all benefits but not UC, so yes they will need to see your printed statement. If this is changing every month then they will need to keep recalculating your award. This will be done monthly and I do not believe your assertation that they only backdate overpayments and no underpayment.

As you are waiting for the change to be noticed, a letter produced and sent via post you are delaying this and causing the under and over payments to be more than they need to be. When you get your monthly UC award go and print it off at your local council office at your earliest opportunity.

CIS

Which Local Authority is it ?

The UC side of it was starting to cause the same issues at my local authority before I left. Even before UC had been introduced in the area it was flagged as an issue regarding CTR and once UC started to be brought in the issue was starting to crop up. Now it's a full UC area I can imagine it's far worse however, after years of trying to deal with DWP from the local authority side I have long since lost faith in their ability to mange anything.

huckster

Hettygreek

So do you want DWP to share all of your UC data with your local council ?

This might include any medical issues you might later have noted on your UC claim. It might not be restricted to the total value of your monthly UC payment.

Because the monthly UC amount may vary depending on various factors including employment earnings, of course DWP will advise councils. Councils will then follow a process. If they wanted to, councils could have a council tax payers online log in, so council tax payers can report their monthly earnings. Any council tax reduction depends on earnings and savings.

I suspect that there is no legislation that allows DWP to share all UC data with councils. The data is restricted to very basic info.