05/04/20 to 11/04/20

Shorter week this week as 10th April is Good Friday. We are starting to receive claims for benefit from people affected by the Covid-19 outbreak. Some have never applied for benefits before. I have had to issue our standard letter advising that housing costs are to be claimed via UC now (apart from certain groups). Most are new UC claimants and their ctr entitlement amount & start date will be determined by whatever the DWP decides regarding their claims. Others are not claiming UC but are on reduced income since the lockdown was imposed from 24/03/2020. They have generally requested backdates to 24th March and I am awarding these backdates. Some claims still require further info to be provided as there is a lot of confusion out there especially amongst people who have never claimed before or whose first language is not English. For self-employed people unable to work I am assessing on nil income as we have been instructed to do & setting a diary entry to check for the furlough payment from the Govt which has been promised for June (backdated to March). I was sent a bank statement for a person who has just reached pension age and whose income has gone from ESA to state pension. The statement showed £2000 withdrawn in cash over a period of 10 days. I rang the daughter (we have permission to discuss) who advised that mum had purchased a new sofa amongst other things and that mum definitely only had the one bank account. I notepadded this & accepted it as fact. Dealt with a claim where clmnt had reported a change in circs to say that his wife had started a new job..in August. He provided payslips but these were blurry & impossible to read. I checked her wages via WURTI which showed she had had other employment before starting the job in August. Another claimant reported a reduction in her weekly hours of work. Her wages had not been updated by us since 2017. Another WURTI check showed that she was in the same job & her usual wage was higher but not massively so but she had received significantly higher wages in April and November 2019. To take account of these I had to amend her wages back to April 2019, inputting the April & November wages separately as one-off's.

This week has involved making decisions on how to treat the new Covid-19 claims. Many are straightforward in that the DWP will be the decision makers and we will go along with it. Others have involved discussion with colleagues especially regarding claim dates and what income to use.

I am still getting to grips with how to process the new claims fairly, accurately & quickly. I expect there is a lot more of the same to come.