AET for Light Touch £1437 net or gross

alchemist777

Thank you Yamor, that's helpful to know.

alchemist777

@Yamor ,
After raising MR in mid-August regarding AET for work-related activities(takes me just below AET due to my pension deductions, my WC is still pestering me for an appointment. Do you have any advice?

alchemist777

I have an update guys.

I finally managed to speak to DWP complaints directly, to be advised that I can't raise MR in my journal, as no decision was made. (Even though in my view the decision was made, as I was put into an intense work search group, due to my pension contributions taking me £8 below AET.)
This is true madness. They will now write their decision into my journal,(to help me)  so I can then officially raise MR regarding the AET.

NedS

alchemist777 said:

I have an update guys.

I finally managed to speak to DWP complaints directly, to be advised that I can't raise MR in my journal, as no decision was made. (Even though in my view the decision was made, as I was put into an intense work search group, due to my pension contributions taking me £8 below AET.)
This is true madness. They will now write their decision into my journal,(to help me)  so I can then officially raise MR regarding the AET.

I agree, that's nonsense. They (in this case the UC system) have made an assessment of your earnings against the AET and made a decision which regime to place you in based on the outcome of that assessment. You should be able to request an MR.

That said, as things currently stand I will be very surprised if your MR is successful even though DWP appear to be aware of the issue. As reported earlier in this thread, hopefully a fix should land soon in the UC system - the first you will likely know about this is if you are automatically placed into the Light Touch regime and asked to agree to a basic system generated commitments to sign in regularly and report any changes in circumstance.

Please keep us updated as you will likely be one of the first people who are able to confirm the issue has been fixed. What is your AP end date?

the_pink_panther_2

@NedS Thanks for that.  The UC system recognises me as being in the 'Light Touch' group by their feed, but I also have a net pay arrangement for my pension contributions and had the feed been taking my earnings correctly, it should have recognised me as in the 'working enough' group.  I'm wondering therefore if also I would realised that the DWP had managed to correct their bug because in theory, would my 'work search' commitments change in the first AP that they had fixed the problem?  Assuming that the work search commitments are different between the working enough and the light touch groups. 

NedS

the_pink_panther_2 said:

@NedS Thanks for that.  The UC system recognises me as being in the 'Light Touch' group by their feed, but I also have a net pay arrangement for my pension contributions and had the feed been taking my earnings correctly, it should have recognised me as in the 'working enough' group.  I'm wondering therefore if also I would realised that the DWP had managed to correct their bug because in theory, would my 'work search' commitments change in the first AP that they had fixed the problem?  Assuming that the work search commitments are different between the working enough and the light touch groups. 

The commitments are (currently) exactly the same for Light Touch and Working Enough regimes. However, if you move from one regime to the other (due to the bug being fixed), the system may automatically generate a new set of (identical) commitments for you to accept. It isn't intelligent enough to know the commitments are identical, only that something has changed and you've changed regime, so it automatically generates the appropriate commitments for you to accept. So yes, you may well spot the change once it gets fixed.

alchemist777

@NedS
My AP is 25-24. Do you know when this might be fixed officially?

NedS

alchemist777 said:

@NedS
My AP is 25-24. Do you know when this might be fixed officially?

@alchemist777 No. As I understand, a fix has been prepared and tested, and updates to the UC system are rolled out regularly, but when this fix may make it into the public build of the UC system is anyone's guess.

Perhaps you can let us know what has happened with your claim on Friday.

NedS

My understanding is that the fix for this issue may have gone live from today.

Does anyone affected have an AP ending soon who can verify this is now fixed?

alchemist777

@NedS -Nope, I have my 2nd appointment scheduled in November, so still, no changes implemented.