Christmas could come early this winter with six types of “unexpected” payments from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) worth up to £20,000 landing in some bank accounts.
The DWP has identified six circumstances in which claimants could be handed a stack of cash with December 25 just weeks away.
The benefits include the so-called Christmas Bonus, a controversial £10 payment which has not risen with inflation, given to those who are eligible at this time of year.
The Christmas Bonus is a one-off tax-free £10 payment made before Christmas, paid to people who get certain benefits in the qualifying week. This is normally the first full week of December.
But now it’s been revealed a whole host of other benefits could be waiting to be unwrapped this festive season, and Express.co.uk looks at some of the examples below.
You were underpaid benefits
Around 70,000 people have received less money than they should from Employment and Support Allowance after switching from older benefits like Incapacity Benefit, it is estimated.
About 20,000 of these people were supposed to receive an extra payment called the ‘severe disability premium’ but didn’t. Some might be owed as much as £20,000.
Your circumstances changed and you now get more
If your circumstances change, you may be entitled to more benefit, less benefit, or you may no longer be entitled to get the benefit at all. If you do not inform the relevant benefits office you could be paid too much benefit and have to pay it back, and this could count as fraud which is a criminal offence.
If you get into trouble because you did not report a change in your circumstances, it is very important to get expert advice as soon as you can. If you have recently separated from a person with whom you used to live as partners, the benefits you can get may have changed.
After separating from your partner, you may receive some benefits or tax credits that you were not able to get when living with a partner, or you might get an increased or decreased amount of the same benefits and Tax Credits, BirminghamLive reports.
You’ve been paid early due to a bank holiday
The next bank holiday in the UK is Christmas Day, and you could get your cash sooner if your normal benefit payment day is a Wednesday. Your Child Benefit payment is usually paid on a different date than usual if it’s due on a bank holiday. Your payment might be delayed if the bank is closed for a public holiday on the day HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) pays you.
Check with your bank for the date you’ll get your payment. Your payment might be delayed because of local holidays if you live in the following places:
Glasgow – local holiday on 30 September.
Edinburgh – local holiday on 16 September.
Dundee – local holiday on 7 October.
Christmas Bonus
The Christmas Bonus is a one-off tax-free payment of £10 from the DWP. It is paid to people who claim certain benefits and meet certain criteria. To receive it, claimants must be present or ‘ordinarily resident’ in the UK, Channel Islands, Isle of Man or Gibraltar during the qualifying week, normally the first full week of December.
And they must also be receiving at least one of the following benefits in the qualifying week.
- Adult Disability Payment
- Armed Forces Independence Payment
- Attendance Allowance
- Carer’s Allowance
- Carer Support Payment
- Child Disability Payment
- Constant Attendance Allowance
- Contribution-based Employment and Support Allowance
- Disability Living Allowance
- Incapacity Benefit at the long-term rate
- Industrial Death Benefit (for widows or widowers)
- Mobility Supplement
- Pension Age Disability Payment
- Pension Credit – the guarantee element
- Personal Independence Payment (PIP)
- State Pension (including Graduated Retirement Benefit)
- Severe Disablement Allowance (transitionally protected)
- Unemployability Supplement or Allowance
- War Disablement Pension at State Pension age
- War Widow’s Pension
- Widowed Mother’s Allowance
- Widowed Parent’s Allowance
- Widow’s Pension
LEAP State Pension error
DWP and HMRC set up a Legal Entitlements and Administrative Practice (LEAP) corrections exercise to identify and invite potentially affected people to apply, correct their records, and make both arrears and ongoing revised State Pension payments.
Home Responsibilities Protection (HRP) was a scheme to help protect parents’ and carers’ State Pension. National Insurance credits replaced HRP in 2010.
The error around HRP arose because many Child Benefit claim forms submitted before 2000 did not include a National Insurance number and this means that the relevant HRP was not carried across from the Child Benefit computer to the National Insurance computer.
In total, the report estimated that DWP underpaid between £520m and £1,220m of state pension because of errors with the recording of HRP, suggesting that the number of people impacted by missing HRP state pension arrears is around 194,000, once adjusted for assumed take-up.
The LEAP review is a process by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to identify cases where people may have been wrongly denied entitlement to a social security benefit, such as Personal Independence Payment (PIP).
The review was intended to identify how many PIP claims had been wrongly assessed and were entitled to backdated payments. People with cognitive, intellectual, or developmental impairments, or mental health conditions were likely to be affected.
The DWP reviewed all current PIP claims, and claims decided on or after November 28, 2016 where PIP was not awarded. The award was usually backdated to November 28, 2016, or to the date the person started receiving PIP if they claimed after that date.
