Reporting Savings over £6,000

Pav38

My assessment period is from the 24th to 23rd each month. When reporting savings do I take the balance as of the 23rd and minus the benefits I received e.g Pip, ESA and UC for that assessment period. Does unspent benefits become savings in the next assessment period? Do you deduct UC payment in assessment period?

Pav38

Can anyone help? Thanking you in advance.

Rachel_Scope

Hi @Pav38. There is guidance on what counts as income here https://www.gov.uk/guidance/universal-credit-money-savings-and-investments . Unspent benefits are counted as capital, so you would need to include your PIP, ESA and UC money that is still in your account on the 23rd.

Here's an example that might be useful:

Katie’s assessment period for Universal Credit runs from the 8th of the month to the 7th of the next month.
Katie was paid a salary of £2,000 on 1 April. This was within her 8 March to 7 April assessment period.
By the end of her next assessment period (8 April to 7 May), she has spent £1,500 of this income.
For the next assessment period (8 May to 7 June) she should report the saved £500 as part of her savings. 

Pav38

Thanks for the reply Rachel. I am a bit confused. So my assessment period 24 August to 23 September, the benefits I receive for that period any unspent benefits become capital on the 23 September or 23 October?

Rachel_Scope

Any unspent benefits that were paid to you in this current assessment period will be classed as capital from September 23. Does that help?

OverlyAnxious

This is actually far more complicated than you'd hope.

The calculation is completely impossible when you have multiple benefit payments coming in and many different outgoings as well.

From what I've seen of the UC staff doing bank statement checks, they only deduct one PIP payment and one ESA payment per AP. They do not deduct any UC.

As the final day of your AP is 3 weeks after the UC payment, you should have spent most of the UC by then.

The actual legislation is that any unspent UC counts as capital at the end of the following AP. So any unspent UC from the Aug/Sept AP doesn't become capital until October. But it's impossible to calculate that as you'd have to take away all of the money you'd spent on bills and food etc first. And then as you get PIP and ESA as well, how do you know which one the money spent has come from? Maybe you've spent all of your PIP and none of the UC, or all of the UC and none of the PIP!

As I say, it's completely impossible to calculate. Personally I would be content deducting one PIP and one ESA payment, but other forum members might disagree with that. You could also ask on your journal, so that at least you've got some 'back-up' if they tell you you're doing it wrong in future. Just be aware that different staff members seem to be giving out different information on the correct way to declare capital, so I wouldn't trust any of them until they're all giving the same information.

On a final note, if you got Cost of Living payments during covid, and your accounts have never dropped below the value of those payments, then you can deduct those as well.

Rachel_Scope

HI @OverlyAnxious. Would you be able to send a link to the legislation you mention please? I got the information from Gov website and followed the example I shared in a previous comment. I'd like to understand if this is wrong.

Pav38

Thank you Rachel and OverlyAnxious. I have been deducting my Pip and 2 Esa payments for the assessment period and not deducting the uc payment from the balance as the 23rd each month. Is this wrong? What shall I do?

OverlyAnxious

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/1149612#Comment_1149612

It's not wrong, it's just worded badly on the .Gov site. That also relates to earnings from work which could be paid on any date, rather than UC payments which are always 1 week into the new AP.

Have to remember that for UC, capital only matters on the final day of the AP. You get paid UC 1 week into the new AP. Therefore you wouldn't get a whole AP to spend it if it became capital at the end of the first AP. You would only get 3 weeks.

PIP and ESA are classed as 'Unearned Income'. But the AP's for those are effectively the period between payments, unlike UC where the payment is 1 week later.

I'm afraid my vision issues mean I can't read large blocks of text to find the exact paragraph right now but it should be somewhere in this section if you've got the time and ability to read it - The Universal Credit Regulations 2013

Kimi87

ESA is paid fortnightly, so only one payment (£291.80) payment should be deducted.

As after the first fortnight, anything unspent from that payment then counts as capital.

OverlyAnxious

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/1149613#Comment_1149613

No problem.

As Kimi says, you should only be deducting one ESA payment.

Honestly, I would just start deducting one from now on, and wouldn't tell them you've made a previous error. It's really not worth the hassle as they'll have to recalculate every payment you've had since going over £6k. It is your decision on whether to tell then or not though.

Rachel_Scope

Thank you @OverlyAnxious and @Kimi87 for explaining that. The Gov website makes it seem so simple but it's good to know that that isn't necessarily the case!