Universal Credit – applications

Quick update on this.

Just had my second review with the UC team via phone and for the second time I am not getting any payment whatsoever. I have the JSA coming through but going by the calculator online I should be getting a total of £4-500 a month UC on top. I’ve had to put a note on mu journal to request the Payment Team look into it but as it stands I’ve received nothing and they don’t think I’ll get anything next month either! I’ve got two ex-colleagues who are in pretty much the exact same situation and they are getting payments with no issues.

Something doesn’t seem right at all.

Have they told you why you don’t qualify?

reluctantjumper – thats in the design of UC You have to persist and probably get a professional to look at your claim. the intent is to refuse claims on spurious grounds and hope folk do not appeal

No, the phone call was just with an advisor that doesn’t have access to the decision process, just the outcome. I’ve had to message the Payment Team via the journal system on the online portal and it says I should hear back withing 7 days.

Even going on my previous savings amount (I’ve spent some of it so it is actually less than declared) I should be getting £436 this month on top of the JSA payments, that’s using the official calculator they link to on the UC webpage. At this rate it’ll be over 3 months before I receive any UC payment whatsoever! How the hell this system is meant to help those who have no savings I have no idea.

thats in the design of UC You have to persist and probably get a professional to look at your claim. the intent is to refuse claims on spurious grounds and hope folk do not appeal

Seriously?!? What **** thought up that system?

Oh yes, wasn’t it Ian Duncal Smith? The **** who cheered a pay freeze for NHS staff? He’s added to the ‘punch in the face on sight’ list.

Yep UC a brilliant idea implemented in the most incompetent, complicated and evil way possible. I did get something out of them but did have to persevere to get it.

Well I’ve had a message back from the Payment Team and they’ve basically told me to go swivel as they don’t think I’m eligible for any payments. No reason or workings out (which I asked for) but they did say they would review for January. A sliver of hope but it really, really annoys me that I’m basically being told to **** off despite me working continuously since I was 16, always ‘paying in’ to they system correctly and never claiming any benefits until now. Contrast to my cousins on one side of my family who never work, pop out kids like they’re going out of fashion, have a house handed to them, have Sky, iPhones and generally do what the hell they want and it’s making me rather angry.

If you see someone aggressively throwing around a Rocket tomorrow that’ll be me. Either that or I’ll be arguing with a tree, probably get more sense out of it actually.

I got another apparently random payment this month, phoned up and said “why is it that much”, they said “here’s the calculation”, I said “yeah but it seems to be full of made up numbers that don’t relate to my claim”, and they said, er, “here’s the calculation”.

But it does look like they might have actually sorted out last month’s screw up, though they won’t actually tell me what the backpayment will be yet, just that I’m getting one.

Not for the first time, I’m so glad I’m not depending on it to live or pay bills at this point- it’s just infuriating and stressful for me but if it was feeding your kids?

There must be an appeals process you can initiate.

I suspect you are just being used to hit their target of rejections this month, just picked at random to be told ‘No’ regardless of the validity of your claim.

I’m going to explore the appeal option after I’ve calmed down a bit, otherwise I’d fill that inevitable box for ‘comments’ full of a sweary rant that would get it rejected.

Not for the first time, I’m so glad I’m not depending on it to live or pay bills at this point- it’s just infuriating and stressful for me but if it was feeding your kids?

That’s my overriding feeling through this, I can’t imagine how I’d be feeling if I had a partner/kids to support and no savings. Is it still true that the majority of the country’s households have less than £100 in savings? If it is then there’s going to be a lot of personal pain when people have to enter the UC system!

You need to appeal and unfortunatly you probably need a pro to do it for you – CAB, local advice shop or whatever

Mrs TJ ( who used to do this stuff for a living) says a the calculation should be available on your online account. Northwind you can phone the advice shop in Edinburgh for help if needed

Had 2 bits of good news about all of this today:

1: I’ve had my REACT funding for my HGV lessons and test approved, fully paid as long as I pass. That’s £1300 of training for free! If I fail my first test I just have to pay for the retest at £120 a go, as long as I end up with a license then it’s all good. I have to repay REACT the £849 if I don’t pass which I’m happy to take the risk on. Lessons and test are booked for the end of January.

2: A friend of my sister is a solicitor who’s currently on maternity leave and has phoned me to help with the UC issue I’m having. She agrees that I should have got a payment this month and is looking into it for me. She’s already contacted the UC team that she deals with locally to her and they say there’s something amiss somewhere, sound promising but not getting my hopes up just yet!

Oh, and they’re claiming I have enough savings to cause issues- I literally got my severance agreement payment through, and then instantly used a chunk of it to clear off some debts, but the 1 day it was in my account apparently counts as “having had savings but then spent it to reduce my savings for UC purposes”. Shrodinger’s savings.

This might be part of the issue for me too. My redundancy payment and PILON hit my account and sat there for a few days before some went on stuff for my parents (both ill and had just moved back home after being flooded out in February) then being put into Premium Bonds. I have also used a previous savings pot I had for the purpose of buying myself something for my 40th birthday in a few weeks, this spend has not been taken off my savings total but has been declared so as not to fall foul of the rules about depleting your savings deliberately so as to claim more UC. I was told by the UC team early on that this is the way to do it and that they would just use their regular formula to assess how much my savings should deplete as time goes on. It would make a difference of £90 to my payment so happy to live with that.

Before you spend 2-3k on a licence. I would just double check with a few current job adverts what their insurance restrictions are.

Have re-looked into this point and my experience driving C1 (7.5t) vehicles counts towards experience with some employers and agencies so should be ok on that. Also the school I am using have said they have previously been contacted about their new passes and have on occasion given references to how good drivers are or aren’t. Sounds like it’ll be a case of wriggling my way in to a job through contacts etc as much as firing off CV’s etc.

Just had my third UC consultation phone call so thought I’d best update this, specifically these two points:

Had 2 bits of good news about all of this today:

1: I’ve had my REACT funding for my HGV lessons and test approved, fully paid as long as I pass. That’s £1300 of training for free! If I fail my first test I just have to pay for the retest at £120 a go, as long as I end up with a license then it’s all good. I have to repay REACT the £849 if I don’t pass which I’m happy to take the risk on. Lessons and test are booked for the end of January.

2: A friend of my sister is a solicitor who’s currently on maternity leave and has phoned me to help with the UC issue I’m having. She agrees that I should have got a payment this month and is looking into it for me. She’s already contacted the UC team that she deals with locally to her and they say there’s something amiss somewhere, sound promising but not getting my hopes up just yet!

1: My training was meant to be happening three weeks ago, then got pushed back a fortnight due to limited capacity then moved to March as the DVSA are suspending all driving tests during the current lockdown. Fully expecting it to be pushed back even further so it will be a while before I can do the course. Annoyingly if I take a job in the meantime I lose the funding and the priority course place so I’m stuck waiting unless a really good job comes along. I have applied for a few but only 1 has even got back to me!

2: My solicitor friend has got a result with the contested payments, they’re all being paid. I should get the money in the next week or so plus I received a payment this month too so it’s all set up correctly now. Don’t know exactly how she managed it but she called me with the good news last week but I waited until now to mention it as I have now had confirmation with the advisor that it is all fine.

The advisor did say that there is still no obligation to look for work right now due to the lockdown but was impressed that I was still getting the odd application out, lots of people are just sitting back and doing nothing. It’ tough out there right now but it shouldn’t be for too long.

Glad to hear that

I’ve done my theory for hgv but like you practical is off the cards currently