Your Universal Credit statement: how to read it line by line

People search for a Universal Credit award letter because that is what the old benefits sent. Universal Credit does not send one. What you get instead is a statement, published in your online account at the end of every assessment period, under payments. It sets out how that month's figure was reached, and because a new one appears every month it is a running record rather than a single decision letter. If a landlord, a council or a lender asks for proof of your award, the statement is what they mean, and you can view or print it from the account. Keep the ones that matter, because the account shows a history rather than a permanent archive you control. Save or print a copy of any statement you may need later, in particular the ones covering a tenancy application or a change you have queried.

Every statement opens with the standard allowance, set by your age and whether you claim alone or as a couple. Under it come the elements you qualify for, one line each: an amount for each child, a higher amount for an eldest child born before 6 April 2017, extra for a disabled child, the housing element, childcare at 85% of registered costs up to a monthly limit, a health element if you have limited capability for work and work-related activity, and a carer element if you care for someone for at least 35 hours a week. Added together these are your maximum Universal Credit. Nothing has been taken off yet, which is why the number at this point is usually larger than the one that reaches your account.

Then the reductions, and they are not all the same kind of thing. Earnings above your work allowance reduce the award by 55p in the pound. Other income, including most other benefits, comes off pound for pound. Capital between £6,000 and £16,000 is treated as producing £4.35 a month for each £250 or part of it. Separately from all of that, debts are recovered under a deductions heading: advances, overpayments, third party deductions for utilities, council tax, rent arrears, child maintenance and court fines. Recovery is normally capped at 15% of your standard allowance, and only three third party deductions can run at the same time. The distinction matters when a payment looks wrong. A small payment caused by earnings is the taper working as designed. A small payment caused by deductions is a debt schedule, and a debt schedule can sometimes be renegotiated.

The benefit cap is applied after everything else. It does not shrink an element, it removes whatever takes your household above the limit, so on the statement it reads as a separate reduction near the bottom. The limit depends on whether you live inside or outside Greater London and whether you are single or a couple, and a single parent whose children live with them gets the couple figure. Earnings of £881.00 a month or more lift the cap entirely, and after earnings at that level stop there is a grace period of 9 months before it applies. If a cap line appears on your statement and you were working, check the grace period before accepting it. Certain benefits in the household also take you out of the cap altogether, so check whether one of those applies before you accept the line as correct.

Work down it in order. Are the elements right for your household, and has every change you reported actually landed? Is the earnings figure the pay your employer reported for that assessment period, which is not always the pay you received in that calendar month? Are the deductions ones you recognise, and does each have a journal message explaining it? A third party deduction should have been announced in the journal when it started. If a figure is wrong, raise it in the journal so the query is dated. If a decision rather than a figure is wrong, ask for a mandatory reconsideration, normally within one month of the decision. Do both in the same month if you need to. A query in the journal does not pause the one month clock on a reconsideration, and waiting for a reply can quietly use it up.