Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the effects on universal credit claimants of her Department calculating universal credit entitlement using income from earnings reported by an employer (a) paid during an assessment period in which they were not earned and (b) as a single payment but which were paid as a multiple payment.

Entitlement to Universal Credit is calculated in monthly assessment periods. The amount of Universal Credit paid reflects, as closely as possible, the actual circumstances of a household each assessment period, including any earnings reported by the employer during that assessment period. Monthly reporting allows the award to be adjusted on a monthly basis, which ensures that if a claimant’s income falls, they will not have to wait several months for a rise in their Universal Credit.

Wherever possible, employed earnings are received through the Real Time Information (RTI) system used by employers to report Pay As You Earn (PAYE) data to HMRC. RTI enables a claimant’s award to be automatically adjusted to reflect their earnings, which eases the reporting burden on claimants.