Help with Mandatory Reconsideration for Cost Of Living Disregards.

Autumnleaf · November 26

Hi. As with others here I'm having trouble getting UC to disregard my COL payments. I have informed them about these multiple times. They eventually told me to include them in Welfare Payments, and my journal then came up with the correct amount of capital. Then I had to upload 3months of statements in addition to which I uploaded, as requested, all statements that included COL payments. I listed the actual dates to make it easy for them to check and also included some government links and quoted the places where it says they are permanently disregarded.

Last week they missed paying me by several days without any warning.

Now they have sent puzzling letters and adjusted entitlements. However, they have ignored entirely the COL payments. Instead they seem to have subtracted my first UC payment from the savings recorded at start of claim (September) but ignoring COLs. (They also told me that backdated welfare payments from years ago is only ignored for 1 year, which I had never mentionsed as that is entirely irrelevant to my complaint about ignoring COL payments!)

I told them I disagree with their calculations and cited what has already been discussed in my journal. The person who responds to my entries says he is starting a mandatory reconsideration and would I like any further information added?

Sorry for the very long post but I would really appreciate some advice about this.

Thanks.

OverlyAnxious · November 27

Hi,

These are not welfare back-payments and should never have been put under that section. That is the reason they are not being disregarded from more than 12 months ago.

Unfortunately we are seeing UC staff make more mistakes around the COL payments lately, and make various recommendations as to how they should be disregarded. Currently, I do not have a 'perfect' recommendation to offer. As far as I'm aware, the official method is still to put your account totals on, and then ask for the COLs to be disregarded via journal message. In my experience, this does not work, the staff do not even read the messages. So I am deducting mine before putting the account totals in, but I am aware that at some point the staff will most likely tell me this is wrong, especially if I get reviewed.

Please do keep us updated about your situation though, as that is the only way the rest of get the most up to date information on UC processes.

Autumnleaf · November 27

Hi and thanks for the reply. I didn't originally put them there but was advised to. So I will have to explain that. The difficulty with deducting them myself is that I already sent my statements in.

It seems now I have a lot of clarification to explain to them.

It appears that a lot of staff don't know the rules and their numbers don't even seem to add up correctly.

I'm still not sure how to do this though. How long do I have to submit stuff for the Mandatory Consideration once it's been raised? Also is there any documentation about what constitutes Welfare Support payments?

OverlyAnxious · November 27

Yes, I can see you are in a difficult position now, and some of that is down to poor advice from UC staff unfortunately.

There is no set time for the Mandatory Reconsideration evidence. Obviously the longer you leave it, the more chance there is of it reaching a Decision Maker before you've sent the evidence in. So I would try to get that done as soon as possible.

You can see the legislation on UC Capital Disregards here - ADM Chapter H2: Capital Disregards

There is a section on Welfare Provision if that's of any help.

Autumnleaf · November 27

I actually put them in as "Welfare Support Payments". Does this make a difference?

Autumnleaf · November 27

I don't even know how to write a Mandatory Reconsideration. Does anyone have knowledge of this kind of thing?

kreacher · November 27

the cab could help you

OverlyAnxious · November 28

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/1086440#Comment_1086440

I'll have to double check the exact wording on the savings page next time I put my own savings in. But unless it's changed recently, there wasn't a section for COL payments. Support payments are generally disregarded for 12 months.

For Mandatory Reconsideration you are only asking them to look at the previous decision again. So you just need to explain why you disagree with that decision. If they aren't disregarding the COL payments then just write that they should be disregarded indefinitely, and add the evidence that you found before.

Autumnleaf · November 28

Thanks. I do think you're probably right about only 12 months disregards, but as it doesn't mention COLs it's hard to know. I am including links and direct quotes from the government sites about permanent disregarding COL payments. I will also say I put them as Welfare Support only after being instructed to.

I'll let you know how things develop.

Help with Mandatory Reconsideration for Cost Of Living Disregards.

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