10/07/20 to 16/07/20

Still awaiting further instruction on how to process our Covid-19 Self-employed review cases.

Short week this week as not in work on Tuesday.

Both my VEP tasks ( wage updates via electronic update from HMRC) resulted in overpayments. Looking at one of the claims I disagreed with how colleagues had assessed entitlement. The average wage we had been using to assess entitlement was significantly lower than the claimant's actual wage most months. My colleague had notepadded that the claimant's wages do fluctuate so I left things as they are only updating the wages from when they recently reduced.

For another claim I had written to enquire about a chid reaching the age of 18. I had noticed that the claimants wages and also childcare cost expenses (CCC) had not been updated in a long time. A check via HMRC website showed that wages had not significantly changed. I wrote out for proof of CCC & received a memo advising that the claimant had rung in response to say her CCC had increased but was unable to provide proof until September. I wrote back to say I was happy to receive the proof in September and then backdate the increase in the expenses to June.

Nothing particularly out of the ordinary cropped up this week.

The only thing learned is that it is good practice to allow leeway for present circumstances, i.e wait till September for proofs to be provided, and that assessing someone's average wage when their wage goes up and down can viewed differently by different people.


Comments

  1. Sandeep19 July 2020 at 04:59

    regarding your last point, usually LA's will have their own percentage set for wage increases outside of a material change. For example, a common scenario is wages have increased due to working a few more hours. Some LA's say that if it is less than 10% change from the normal amount, then they will not update it. Do Kirklees have anything in place?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Paul Burns Kirklees Council6 August 2020 at 07:19

    No, it is left to each individual processors discretion. My own view is that I wouldn't expect a claimant to report an increase below £15pw or £65pcm but more than that would need looking at further.

    ReplyDelete

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