UC Self employed income, system broken?!

GreenCat80

I started claiming UC last month. At the end of both my assessment periods so far I have not had the task to fill in my SE income (that's my only income) on my to-do list. Both times my work coach has looked and said I have completed the task and said my earnings was £0. This absolutely definitely did not happen! I have had no task, I've regularly checked my to-do list and the task hasn't come up, and it's not in my journal that I have completed that task, nor have a text message or email in my history about those tasks.

I've sent multiple messages asking for the task, but my work coach has made me fill in the same irrelevant form 3 times (total household income month by month when I was still with my now ex partner) I was supposed to declare my SE income on the 31st and I still haven't been able to and my work coach doesn't seem to understand what I am asking as I have apparently already said I earnt £0.

I've told them I'm worried there is a glitch in my system but they don't seem to understand why I'm worried about it. Is this something that happens? I'm so stressed about the claim, I can't even focus on work this week while I've been trying to sort this out 

tacpot12

Ask you local Citizens Advice if you need to. Ask the DWP for a Mandatory Reconsideration when/if they say you are not entitled to any UC. 

Alice_Holt

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-credit-and-self-employment-quick-guide/how-to-report-your-earnings-from-self-employment

Maybe - 

Ring the UC help line?

Put a note on your journal for the attention of your Case Manager ?

And MR it, as suggested above

NedS

Have you attended a Gateway appointment at the start of your claim where your work coach went through evidence of your self employment with you and explained how self employment and UC works? This appointment is called a Gateway and normally lasts 1 hour. Again, you should be able to see on your journal where it says you have attended an appointment, what appointment type it was. You would not get the tasks to report your self employed earnings until you have attended this appointment.

GreenCat80

NedS said:

Have you attended a Gateway appointment at the start of your claim where your work coach went through evidence of your self employment with you and explained how self employment and UC works? This appointment is called a Gateway and normally lasts 1 hour. Again, you should be able to see on your journal where it says you have attended an appointment, what appointment type it was. You would not get the tasks to report your self employed earnings until you have attended this appointment.

Thank you, yes I have had my appointment and they declared me as gainfully self employed, it’s just really worrying me that the system isn’t generating the task for me to input my earnings, so last month they massively overpaid me because it said my earnings were zero, then it said my earnings were zero again this month but once again it hadn’t asked for my earnings. I asked my coach to generate the task on the 31st, and she eventually did it this afternoon after telling me on the 31st I’d already done it and declared £0 (I absolutely did not do this!)

calcotti

Unfortunately, even though it is their error, you will have to pay back anything you have been overpaid. If you can workout what you should have got you will know how much the overpayment is and should set it aside.

GreenCat80

calcotti said:

Unfortunately, even though it is their error, you will have to pay back anything you have been overpaid. If you can workout what you should have got you will know how much the overpayment is and should set it aside.

Thank you, I sent last months back straightaway, I just really hope it doesn’t happen every month, I was worrying about being overpaid again and again 

NedS

GreenCat80 said:

NedS said:

Have you attended a Gateway appointment at the start of your claim where your work coach went through evidence of your self employment with you and explained how self employment and UC works? This appointment is called a Gateway and normally lasts 1 hour. Again, you should be able to see on your journal where it says you have attended an appointment, what appointment type it was. You would not get the tasks to report your self employed earnings until you have attended this appointment.

Thank you, yes I have had my appointment and they declared me as gainfully self employed, it’s just really worrying me that the system isn’t generating the task for me to input my earnings, so last month they massively overpaid me because it said my earnings were zero, then it said my earnings were zero again this month but once again it hadn’t asked for my earnings. I asked my coach to generate the task on the 31st, and she eventually did it this afternoon after telling me on the 31st I’d already done it and declared £0 (I absolutely did not do this!)

I have no idea what's going on here and have never experienced such an error.

The system automatically generates the todo's for you to complete on the last day of your Assessment Period (AP). When completed, you'll see a link in your journal which you can click on to see what you've submitted. Do you see any such entries in your journal?

On your UC Statement, do you see anything under earnings? Perhaps you could share a screenshot having first removed any personal information to see if that gives us any clues as to what may be happening.

GreenCat80

Nope @NedS , I can’t see anything or any journal entries other than me talking to my work coach. My coach says it looks like I have filled in in with £0 but there is nothing on my side to say I’ve filled it in. My coach did generate the request yesterday (my assessment period is 31st-31st) so I got that text/email and filled it in and can see it on my journal. I guess I’ll wait and see what happens next month now. Honestly, nothing in my life is ever straightforward 😩😅

tomtom256

GreenCat80 said:

Nope @NedS , I can’t see anything or any journal entries other than me talking to my work coach. My coach says it looks like I have filled in in with £0 but there is nothing on my side to say I’ve filled it in. My coach did generate the request yesterday (my assessment period is 31st-31st) so I got that text/email and filled it in and can see it on my journal. I guess I’ll wait and see what happens next month now. Honestly, nothing in my life is ever straightforward 😩😅

If your work coach has generated it, then the system doesn't have you down as being self-employed and it sounds like they may have created a "report your earnings from your employer to-do".
I would ask them to check they have completed the "verify self-employment to-do" on your account and if they have to check they have selected yes to does the claimant need to report their income.

NedS

tomtom256 said:

GreenCat80 said:

Nope @NedS , I can’t see anything or any journal entries other than me talking to my work coach. My coach says it looks like I have filled in in with £0 but there is nothing on my side to say I’ve filled it in. My coach did generate the request yesterday (my assessment period is 31st-31st) so I got that text/email and filled it in and can see it on my journal. I guess I’ll wait and see what happens next month now. Honestly, nothing in my life is ever straightforward 😩😅

If your work coach has generated it, then the system doesn't have you down as being self-employed and it sounds like they may have created a "report your earnings from your employer to-do".
I would ask them to check they have completed the "verify self-employment to-do" on your account and if they have to check they have selected yes to does the claimant need to report their income.

To confirm, any way you can take a screenshot or copy and paste what that journal entry shows for when you reported your earnings, so we can determine if it was to report self-employed earnings, or the incorrect todo for employed earnings as @tomtom256 suggests. They wouldn't be able to manually raise the todo's to report self employed earnings if the verify self-employment to-do had not been completed (or completed correctly)