Backdated occupational pension

May be overthinking this.

Client (pensioner) has just be awarded backdated occupational pension for a number of years. For most of the period covered, she was not getting benefits but is now in receipt of HB.

Is the backdated occupational pension capital or income?

Instinctively, I would say it’s capital as it’s a one-off payment of arrears.

it will be income for the period it covered and the rest is capital - so, lets say she got a payments of £2400 covering 24 months from March 2020 - Feb 2022

She has been on HB since July 2021 - the arrears from July 2021 - Feb 2022 are counted as income ( £100 per month) for those months
The rest is treated as capital
This assumes shes not on Pension credit, as PC would need to be updated before HB could be adjusted.