UC and JC appointments

Hi,

Recent MM from SG ESA(cb+ir top up) to UC, I have a question about capital: Is it usual that every declared change in capital, +/- £250, always results in a mandatory in-person JC appointment?

Over the threshold as last PIP re-assessment took nearly 18 months and resulted with a significant backpayment (but under the indefinite disregard amount). UC were informed right from the start, and it was checked (backpay letter, relevant bank statements etc) at JC, along with ID.

Following month, I declared a change, the next day received a notification of a JC appointment, but appointment was under 24 hours away. I sent a message saying it would be very difficult to attend at such notice and provide their requested statements covering the change wouldn’t even be sent out for weeks.

Didn’t get a response and just had to arrange transport there at short notice. My local JC was closed/sold off years ago so have to travel to next county. The JC agent just manually verified my online bank balances and transactions.

Similar has happened for my latest declaration, requesting in-person JC attendance for evidence that isn’t yet available, including things they have already seen. I am in the SG, I do not travel well, it seems unnecessary to have to physically come in to try to show something that is only presently available electronically. I already advised of non-availability in Journal (because of hospital appointments) but still had to again request a suitable time via Journal ‘payment’.

I believe I have seen other B&W forum posts where things regarding capital were able to be done online and not every assessment period, just would like to know what is normal/usual, please?

Thanks

Thank you, David.

The ‘payment’ message reply from local JC advised that: every change declared needs an appointment to again verify capital, it may include resubmitting some of the same evidence from recent past appointments, as copies are not retained because of gdpr rules.

At a previous appointment, the JC staff member certainly did take some copies of documents, as they mentioned they need to redact certain things in their retained versions? They aslo advised in passing, that they wouldn’t be able to answer any UC queries, and were purely collecting evidence requested from a more-central JC. As such, I think I may try again to see if I can get any clarification via the UC phoneline.

Thanks again