12/04/20 to 18/04/20

Many more new claims for benefit coming in now as people are on reduced incomes or unable to work altogether. Most new claims are for ctr only and have been received via a claim for UC. I have registered these claims & will await the UC award info. I was able to process some claims received last month as we have now received the UC award info for these. For a couple of these there was no entitlement due to the UC Assessed Income Figure (UCAIF). The UCAIF was based on earnings in February or earlier however and this is likely to change when we receive next  months UCAIF because of the Covid-19 outbreak. I edited our standard 'non qualifier' ltr to advise that there may well be entitlement based on the next UC award breakdown if they had been furloughed from work.

One claim received via a Universal Credit was from a Person from Abroad who had previously been the partner on a claim. His nationality had not been an issue on the joint claim. The claimant had previously rented out the property he had now moved into. His wife and kids remained at his previous address and she was claiming as a single parent. He had now provided a different address as his previous address. He has been in receipt of child tax credit up until this month. He is still linked to his wife as her partner on the CIS system. She also receives CTC overlapping with his CTC award and the amounts are different. I have written out for more information. My instinct is that there is something not right with this claim.
I finally put a CTR claim into payment that I had first looked at in December 2019. I had written out and received no response. The AI'd it and received partial responses on two occasions. This week I finally had all the information I required. The claim was for an elderly couple and had been submitted by their daughter. They had claimed before but been non-qualifiers due to capital. There were notes on the claim referring to contact from the daughter & giving a contact address for her. After the claim was submitted in December we had been informed that the daughter was now claiming UC at her parents address. Her residential address on CIS had been at her parents for quite a long time. She had not explained why this was the case or where she lived. After an exchange of emails she explained that she had a mobile address and that the DWP were aware. I rang her to discuss what she meant and she stated had wanted to apply for Carers Allowance but been told to apply for UC. She had briefly moved into her parents house in December when her mum first came out of hospital. She had been advised by Social Services to say that she lived 'care of' her parents. She was actually living at the address we had been given for her originally. Her parents capital was now below the £16k limit. I accepted all this at face value. The drop in capital was not excessive, there is no claim or spd affected at the address she lives at & the time spent at her parents was temporary only and didn't affect entitlement or spd as her mum is in receipt of Attendance Allowance. From this I have learned that some scenarios are unusual and confusing but there can be an innocent explanation. A telephone call to discuss the claim can clear up any confusion. I also learned that I did the right thing in persevering with this claim. A 2nd claim had been submitted in February but I was still prepared to process the December claim at that point.

In future I will continue to try and speak to claimants over the phone where I have doubts over a claim. It helps with the decision making process.