I logged in to my UC journal today to see where DWP-UC is up to with paying me the right amount of money. They’ve made one correction – they’re no longer taking ESA repayments off me, which I had already repaid. They then also went and changed ALL of my past UC payment notices. They now don’t show what I was actually paid, and ironically still aren’t correct – because the housing element has now been removed completely. Sadly I didn’t download and save my previous UC payment notices, but at least my bank records don’t change retrospectively, so they still show what I was actually paid.
It goes something like this:
August
paid the standard element, minus 63% of earnings, plus 100% of rent
overpayment of 14% of rent
Sep
Paid the standard element, minus 63% of earnings, plus 64% of rent
underpayment of 22% of rent
Oct
Paid the standard element, minus 63% of earnings, plus 64% of rent, minus approx £50 for ESA overpayment that I had in fact paid back in full
Two days later, get paid the LCWRA element plus the 63% of earnings deducted
underpayment of 22% of rent plus approx £50 incorrectly deducted for overpayment I had repaid
Nov
Paid standard element, plus LCWRA element, plus 64% of rent
underpayment of 22% of rent
Here’s where the fun really starts. My Aug and Sep payment slips have all been updated to contain the LCWRA element but no housing element. So this means that, relative to what I actually got paid, the DWP owes me:
Aug
63% of earnings plus LCWRA minus 14% of rent
Sep
63% of earnings plus LCWRA plus 22% of rent
Oct
22% of rent plus approx £50
Nov
22% of rent
All of which adds up to around half of the lump sum I got earlier this month, which DWP-UC hadn’t told me about.
I’m going to put all this into my UC journal, and then later shall ring DWP-UC. I find now that it is in words I can see what has gone on, whereas numbers in a spreadsheet or a piece of paper were confusing me. I don’t want to rely on my calculations being correct and so telling DWP-UC precisely what I think they owe me, yet I can’t rely on them either. I guess if we end up with roughly the same idea of what DWP-UC owes me I’ll leave it at that.
Oh, and I never received a physical letter about being put in the LCWRA group, which I was supposed to do within seven days of that happening (some time in October). So I ought to ask for that, as given the (currently alleged) backpayment to August it would appear that my LCWRA could still be an administration move based on my previously being on ESA-SG, rather than being a new assessment that will continue for a year or three.