Benefits

[user1479764571]

What can be done about benefits? My daughter missed a month of statutory maternity pay due to an error, and it was paid the following month instead. This caused her benefits for that month to be reduced, as her income appeared higher. It was their mistake—I don't understand why this happens.

It happens because the government hates people who don't have millions or billions of pounds to hoard.

Imagine if your daughter had missed a month on her council tax, bailiffs would be round in week 3, but she is scammed out of money he is owed by the state and its "oh noooooo.... nooo we don't careee".

Write to your MP about it.

She will have had higher payments in the month that was missed though

I assume that your DD's employer made the error and paid her later than they should have done. In that case they should report this to HMRC to get the payroll information corrected. The data is automatically shared with UC. But if the employer doesn't update HMRC, UC won't know.

Your DD should also request a mandatory reconsideration using the argument that the first month's SMP should have be paid to earlier and included in the earlier assessment period. She should ask them to correct it by recalculating her entitlement for both months. She can upload her payslips and anything else she has to evidence what happened eg emails exchanged with payroll discussing the error.

There is some info about this sort of issue at https://www.litrg.org.uk/benefits/universal-credit/universal-credit-and-employee-pay
and if your DD wants help with any of it she should contact her local citizens advice.

Has she explained this in her journal? I’d attach proof from the employer and ask for a mandatory reconsideration.
If that doesn’t work M.P. It’s a stupid system.

Actually this is more helpful as it directly relates to your DD's situation
https://revenuebenefits.org.uk/universal-credit/guidance/entitlement-to-uc/rti-and-universal-credit/#two_pays_in_one_assessment_period_for_monthly_paid_claimants

Thank you for the comments

But I think that due to the way it is calculated, she still receives less money overall then she should have done.

Plus it could introduce a cashflow problem and knock on effects for example if she got behind with bills or couldn't buy other essentials.

She would have had higher benefits is the previous months though so surely it evens outs

It doesn't exactly even out, no, because SMP is treated as earnings and OP is likely to be eligible for the work allowance which means some of your earnings are ignored before they make deductions from your UC.

For example, a single mum's maximum UC could be:
standard allowance (single 25+) 393.45
child element (1 child) 287.92
total 681.37
(not including housing element if renting)

In a month when her income is zero (no SMP paid) her UC is £681.37.

One month's SMP is £797.46 but in a month when she is paid it, her UC won't be reduced by that much. If she is claiming the housing element her work allowance is £404 which means that her UC will be reduced by 55% of her earnings above that amount. So £216.40. This means her UC will be £464.97.

If she got two SMP payments in one month, that would be £1594.92, and her UC would be reduced by £655 so she would only get £26.37 that month.

To recap:

Earnings zero UC £681.37
Earnings £797.47 UC £464.97
Earnings £1594.92 UC £26.37

With zero pay one month and double pay the next month, her total UC is £707.74.
With normal pay both months, her total UC is £929.94.
So she has effectively lost out on £222.20.

At the end of the year when they look at all benefits/earnings though would it not balance eventually?

my son had UC for a couple of months as he didn’t earn enough but at the end of the year he was expected to pay some back as over the year he wasn’t entitled to all of it

No