[2024] UKUT 196 (AAC)

Miss R's appeal is refused. In my view the Secretary of State correctly reduced Miss R's Universal Credit entitlement to reflect that fact that at the time of the Decision she held £10,700 capital.

I find as a fact on a balance of probabilities, placing reliance on the original claim for Universal Credit and having regard to Miss R's oral evidence about her level of capital at particular periods of time, that at the date of the Decision 27 December 2020, Miss R held £10,700 in savings. This sum of money had been derived from a settlement agreement arising out of proceedings in the Employment Tribunal involving issues of discrimination and redundancy. On or around 17 May 2019 Miss R had received £27,000. By 27 December 2020 this sum had diminished to £10,700. Miss R made reference to previous approaches to the job centre in 2019 in which she had been refused Universal Credit entirely. There were no formal decisions about these approaches on the Tribunal's file. I nonetheless find on balance on each occasion she was likely to have held over £16,000 in savings. I have carefully considered whether this money can be disregarded for the purposes of Universal Credit, either under Schedule 10 of the Universal Credit Regulations 2013 or at all. In my view it cannot. It does not fall into any of the exempted categories of capital nor can it otherwise be disregarded. In my view the Secretary of State was therefore correct to take it into account and it correctly applied reductions to Miss R's Universal Credit entitlement.