Calculating Savings for UC

NAKK

Hi all,
Just wanted to reach out to everyone here for some guidance. 
I was recently made redundant from a high paying professional job. I decided to apply for UC whilst I look for another role. As part of the application, I selected the incorrect savings option by declaring over £6k savings. Anyhow, I now want to correct this so have notified DWP that I have savings of less than £6k. I currently only have total monetary sum in all my bank accounts equalling to less than £6k, however, by end of Feb I will get one month's Payment In Lieu of Notice of about £4100 (before tax) and settlement payment of £9000. Apart from the above money at end of Feb, I also have huge debts - £8k loan in account 1; £5k loan in account 2; £6k credit card 1 outstanding balance; £1k credit card 2 outstanding balance. 
My question is, for the purpose of savings and money I have, do I need to add all the savings and minus debt? Or do I have to just declare the savings as they are with no consideration to debt?
I'm confused, please advise as this is my first time ever applying for any sort of benefits. I would appreciate responses.

Kind regards
Nakk

Alice_Holt

You declare savings as they are with no reduction for any outstanding debts.
However if you use the savings to repay debt, UC will not treat this as deprivation of assets.
So, for instance, paying off your credit cards of £7k from your £9k settlement, would leave you with £2k of the settlement balance as savings counting for UC.

Payment in Lieu may also be taken as income in the period by UC, but I'm not sure about that.

calcotti

Your payment in lieu of notice is I think income for the month, not savings. If so this may result in nil entitlement to UC for the month. If this happens your UC claim may be closed in which case you will have to do a rapid reclaim to reactivate the claim.

If the settlement payment is a redundancy payment it will, I think, be treated as capital. See paragraph H3119 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/767105/admh3.pdf

Paying off debt is allowed under UC so you can use savings for this. You will need to keep DWP informed about your level of savings.