[2024] UKUT 196 (AAC)

The essential dates in this case are as follows.

In or around May 2019 Miss R received a payment of some £27,000 under an ACAS settlement of employment tribunal proceedings that she had brought against her former employer. The ACAS settlement comprised three elements: £6,411.60 for loss of employment, £6,945.90 by way of statutory redundancy payment and £14,142.50 for injury to feelings arising from alleged discrimination.

On 20 May 2019 Miss R made a claim for universal credit.

On 4 June 2019, in a Jobcentre interview, Miss R declared that she had capital of over £16,000, being the compensation payment from her former employer. According to a subsequent DWP letter, “As such you were not entitled to UC, and your claim was closed” (letter dated 25 September 2021, FTT bundle Addition A Page 1).

Some eighteen months later, on 27 November 2020, Miss R made a new claim for universal credit. She declared that she still had capital of £10,700.

On 27 December 2020 a decision-maker decided that Miss R was now entitled to universal credit but subject to an assumed yield deduction of £82.65 for each assessment period (AP). This was because she had capital of £10,700 that could not be disregarded under Schedule 10 to the Universal Credit Regulations 2013 (SI 2013/376) or otherwise.

Miss R applied for a mandatory reconsideration (MR). The DWP treated this as a request for MR of the decisions on both her May 2019 and November 2020 claims to universal credit. However, the request for MR of the first claim was refused as it was outside the absolute 13-month time limit. The decision on the second claim (i.e. the decision dated 27 December 2020) was reconsidered but the decision was not changed (letter dated 14 April 2021, FTT bundle Addition A Page 4). Miss R then appealed to the First-tier Tribunal (FTT).