Source · Select Committees · Work and Pensions Committee
Recommendation 42
42
Paragraph: 182
Currently, backdating is only permitted up to a month before the claim was submitted.
Recommendation
Currently, backdating is only permitted up to a month before the claim was submitted. Given the seriousness of the life events which might allow the backdating of a claim—bereavement, serious illness, relationship breakdown—this period seems astonishingly short. We recommend that, in specified circumstances, the Department allow backdating to the point at which the change in someone’s life occurred, rather than strictly a month before.
Paragraph Reference:
182
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
UC support has been designed to be as quick and easy as possible for the claimant, replacing the need to contact different government departments with a single application. It simplifies the legacy system by rolling six benefits into one, ensuring they receive money for which they are entitled at the earliest opportunity. The Help to Claim programme is available for all claimants and offers independent, tailored and practical support to help people make a UC claim and receive their first payment on time and in full. We want to ensure that claimants understand they must make a claim at the point of need, not before or after. Allowing claims to be backdated for more than a month could disincentive people from making UC claims at the point of need. We are of course aware that there are small groups of vulnerable claimants who might face delays in making their UC claim. Therefore, limited provisions for backdated claims within UC are available, with mitigations in place to deal with the majority of situations. Claimants who struggle to claim online are able to make a telephone claim or seek assistance face to face in a local office or exceptionally through a home visit. In these circumstances, the date of first contact will be the date of claim.