Universal Credit Help

Cashy87

Hi,

We have recently applied for UC for the first time. My husband pays additional voluntary contributions from his pension (he started his pension late) and we were advised these could be disregarded. We supplied the proof of these extra payments and hoped they'd be taken into account in the calculation, they were given within the assessment period. 

We have since received our first payment of UC but the pension contributions haven't been disregarded, the journal was updated to say the proof has been sent to a Decision Maker. We've been told there's not time scale for when we will hear back.

I thought if we supplied the proof then a manual calculation could be done? Will it have to be passed to a decision maker every month (the contributions he pays can vary)? 

Thanks.

kaMelo

You are not alone, there have been a few threads on here about this issue.

Unfortunately there is no automated way to include these pension contributions when calculating UC, you will need to inform them every month of the amount contributed to the pension.

A decision maker will then have to decide whether to disregard them (they should do) before a revised calculation can take place.

For the avoidance of doubt, the legislation is clear that contributions to a recognised pension scheme are disregarded.

Cashy87

Thank you, I'm hoping they do it quickly so I know how to budget my money.

NedS

To update on the current process for this, as I know it affects a lot of people.

Firstly, as stated above, you will be required to provide evidence of the extra pension contributions paid from net pay each month.

UC receives information relating to your pay each month on an RTI (Real Time Information) from HMRC. Because you are making pension contributions from your net (take home) pay, HMRC have no knowledge of these and consequently they are not recorded on your RTI feed as they were not done through your employer.

To fix your UC award, they have to modify your RTI feed. In order to be able to manually update the earnings received on your RTI feed, they have to have a decision from a Decision Maker, allowing them to do so.

Once they have made a decision once, that should be sufficient and they should not need to refer to a Decision Maker every month - they can refer back to the original decision each month. Unfortunately it can take between 1-3 months for that first decision to be made (and DWP have been known to make perverse decisions that must then be challenged at tribunal, significantly extending the delay).

When they receive the evidence each month, they then have to manually modify the RTI feed to produce the correct UC award. If an incorrect award has already been made, the difference will be issued as an underpayment separately.

It would be SO MUCH EASIER for you if your husband could make the additional contributions directly through their employer pension scheme, deducted directly from their pay packet. This would completely circumvent this mess and the RTI feed would be correct, as would your UC award from the outset.

Cashy87

Thank you Ned, I will see if this is something my husband could do via his employer thank you.