Carers allowance overpayment, UC underpayment

Yessy

Hi all, 

I'm looking for some advice or experience in a matter that I am facing.
I returned to my part-time work in September after being on maternity leave for 12 months. I am claiming CA for my disabled son and usually under my earnings limit and use my pension contributions to stay there. In April with the new minimum wage kicking in I didn't have to worry about increasing my contributions into my pension. This was because I was getting 90% of my wage in maternity pay and that kept me well below the limit. Well you guessed it, come September I was now back earning my full part-time wage and totally forgot to use my pension contributions to lower my wage. My mistake and I accept full responsibility, I was £1.02 over.
I let CA know as soon as I realised and have now been overpaid for 9 weeks, no worries, my mistake.
Now when I first claimed CA I was back paid for 6 weeks and then had to repay this to UC for overpayment. Luckily I knew this would happen and saved the money to clear it. They changed all my statements to reflect the now backdated CA payments.
So my thinking is, surely they should now do the same for this 9 weeks of CA in reality I will not have received. Remember that CA is taken pound for pound from UC, so I am not any financially better off by claiming it, but now I am financially worse off. 
When I phoned collections to pay my CA overpayment back they said I should be allowed to offset this CA overpayment against a now UC underpayment, I would need to speak with UC.  I spoke with UC who said I should speak with CA. CA said yes this is possible and you need to speak with UC and stop letting them palm you back to us. Anyway, for about 10th time now I have spoken to UC and they have no idea about offsetting and keep trying to get me to challenge the CA overpayment, even though I keep telling UC that the overpayment is all correct and I made the error.
To make it worse, I spoke with citizens advice who also had no idea about if I should have triggered a UC underpayment and said "there is nothing you can do".
Why is it that if you are backdated any CA they can swiftly change all your UC statements to reflect you owe them money.  When you have been overpaid CA and pay it back they can't change your statements so swiftly to show you have been underpaid UC? It is the exact same in reverse.
There is quite a bit of discussions on a few other websites involving overpayment triggering underpayments and offsetting should be applied, yet none of them specifically mention CA.

Thanks for reading and hope you understand my waffling.

Yessy

I am yet to find an answer or get to the bottom of this, but when I do, I will share.

HillStreetBlues

Having a read of Benefit Overpayment Guide it should be off-set against an income related benefit if I have understood it.

Example

Income Support and Widows Benefit are claimed on 5 January 2015. Income Support awarded at £40 a week from 5 January 2015 pending a decision on Widows Benefit. On 26 January 2015 an award of Widows Benefit is made at £54.20 a week from 5 January 2015, which exceeds the amount of Income Support payable. The Income Support ceases, and the Widows Benefit arrears are reduced by the Income Support previously paid. The arrears of Widows Benefit from 5 January 2015 to 25 January 2015 are paid at £14.20 a week.

It is later discovered that the claimant had misrepresented the material fact that her ‘husband’ had been married before and that their ‘marriage’ was invalid. The Decision Maker decides that there was no entitlement to Widows Benefit. Widows Benefit had been paid to 22 February 2015.

The Widows Benefit overpayment is:

£14.20 x 3 weeks paid 5 January 2015 to 25 January 2015 = £42.60

£54.20 x 4 weeks paid 26 January 2015 to 22 February 2015 = £216.80

£216.80 + £42.60 = £259.40

The additional Income Support of £40 a week payable 26 January 2015 to 22 February 2015, had there been no misrepresentation, is offset against the overpayment of Widows Benefit under Regulation 13:

Amount offset under Regulation 13 = £160

Net Widows Benefit overpayment (£259.40 - £160) = £99.40

3.26 The actual overpayment of Widows Benefit is £99.40 – it is not an overpayment of £259.40 with a partial recovery.

Different benefits but the principles should be the same.

So any overpayment should be  CA minus  what your UC would have been if not claiming CA