Universal credit wca decsion

calcotti

Marko1930 wrote: »

Because my wife as been awarded lwcra today
In turn they removed
Her carers element (which was okay) and would of given us a small amount of back pay
But the also removed our daughter's disability element

The incompetence is unbelievable. The child disability element is included because your daughter receives DLA. It has nothing to do with whether or not a carer element is included. In any case your partner is still a carer, it’s just that she cannot be paid the carer element because she receives the LCWRA element.

Alice_Holt

calcotti wrote: »

The incompetence is unbelievable. The child disability element is included because your daughter receives DLA. It has nothing to do with whether or not a carer element is included.

Quite.
And it seems to be getting worse. The DWP are rapidly achieving not fit for purpose status.
Staff cutbacks / no training / carp systems / complex benefits landscape / etc, etc

What happens to claimants when the help available from charities such as Citizens Advice is further eroded by even greater funding cutbacks - I hate to think.

Marko1930

I can't thank you all enough
It's an embarrassment of how bad this system is failing
The man on welfare rights even commented when I said I'm looking for advice about universal credit
His comment was oh my days not another one
Apparently his days consists of advising about universal credit more than any other benefit and the frustration from the people asking for advice is very saddening
He said its poor system and alot of people are in serious hardship
And the only advice they can offer most of the time is how to budget even though he knows budgeting can only stretch so far on the little amount they give

It's people like you on this site who take so much time out of your days and lifes to help us in need of guidance
You dont see how much you help people at the other end of the computer screen
And it's quite breath taking how you all know more than the people who are being paid at universal credit
It seems they are just going along with their own rules
I hope to get more further on this situation tomorrow as the helpline is closed now
I was told about a change of circumstances advance by the welfare officer but iv already had a budgeting advance and a advance when first applying to universal credit
I will keep you updated on this because you have all been a huge help and it will also help others if they ever go through this

Marko1930

Hi I thought I would update you on the progress so far

So they realized the mistake of taking off the child's disability element
But now sent a new calculation of payments and they are still stating we have been overpaid by £114.54
And now sending it to debt management
But I followed this up with someone from dial
And they said that a overpayment cannot occur because we have been given higher element on our claim it's impossible for a overpayment to happen and the only thing that should of occurred is a underpayment
And suggest I request a mandatory reconsideration
Can anyone confirm this is correct

poppy12345

Marko1930 wrote: »

Hi I thought I would update you on the progress so far

So they realized the mistake of taking off the child's disability element
But now sent a new calculation of payments and they are still stating we have been overpaid by £114.54
And now sending it to debt management
But I followed this up with someone from dial
And they said that a overpayment cannot occur because we have been given higher element on our claim it's impossible for a overpayment to happen and the only thing that should of occurred is a underpayment
And suggest I request a mandatory reconsideration
Can anyone confirm this is correct

There should not be an overpayment, they should owe you money, which should be £176 per month from the 4th complete assessment period.



Can you give a breakdown of the calculation they gave that made them decide you've been overpaid.

Marko1930

I have screen shot the note on my journal but I dont know how to upload it
Can I send it via private message
Because it makes no sense to me

Marko1930

This is what I recieved on my journal
It makes no sense to me



Your payments have been re-calculated
from 29/04/2019-28/05/2019 you have been awarded extra premiums for your caring responsibilities and the lower rate disabled child element from this we have taken the agreed advance payment of £199.55 and 0.01 towards your budgeting loan repayment.
from 29/05/2019-28/06/2019
you have been awarded extra premiums for your caring responsibilities and the lower rate disabled child element.
from 29/06/2019-28/07/2019
you have been awarded extra premiums for your caring responsibilities and the lower rate disabled child element from this we have taken the agreed budgeting loan repayments of £156.56, £18.05 towards tax credit overpayment, arrears of water rates £24.94 and on going consumption of £42.95.
All these payment are available to view on your statement this is just a break down of the deductions.
After this re calculation you still have an overpayment occurred of £114.33, I will now amend this with debt management you will be contacted by them regarding the recovery of this.

calcotti

The periods you have quoted are from end of April to end of July. These are, as I understand it, the first three assessment periods of your claim so the LCWRA element is not payable for these periods. The calculations for these three periods should therefore still include two carer elements and should therefore be basic + housing + child x 2 + disabled child + carer x 2.
Nothing you have discussed on your two threads should make any difference to these three assessment periods.
Possibly they have retrospectively changed some of the deduction amounts (?).

I suggest you compare the amounts they say you are due with the amounts you actually received. Unfortunately, unless you took copies at the time, the originals will have been overwritten by the new calculations, however, if you have copies of the original calculations for these periods make a direct comparison.

(As an aside I would advise that each month you make a copy of the UC calculation explaining the payment you receive - take a screen grab or whatever is convenient. This way you have your own record - the entries on your journal can be revised by DWP retrospectively which distorts the historical narrative.

For the period starting 29/07/2019 have they now included the LCWRA element?

If it is not clear you could post a query on your journal or ring the helpline: You have told me that you have revised the calculations for my first three assessment periods resulting in an overpayment. I do not understand why you have done this or what has changed. Please clarify this.

From a practical point of view if there is an overpayment of £114 it will be recovered from future UC payments (or offset against the underpayment for the periods since 29 July).

Marko1930

Thank you again for another reply

They openly admitted that a mistake had been made by removing 2 elements
So surely this overpayment is hopefully a mistake
I have queried as to why a overpayment as come from my first 3 statements
But i also put in a request for a mandatory reconsideration
So this can be sorted
I can't shake off the feeling that this whole process as been one mistake
We was advised that her decision for been unfit for work would see us with extra money and back pay like everyone else
But we get left with a overpayment and a fail in removing elements
As it been known to be overpaid due to a high element been added because the gentleman at dial stated he has never known this before
And that is why his advice was to appeal this