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‘We are not financial advisers and cannot legally give any financial advice’
This little nugget is from the updated DWP guidance recently provided in these pages via a FoI request.
It is DWP’s reason for not advising people on the best time to make a UC claim.
Is that really ‘financial advice’?
Does that mean we can’t give it either? (guess who they’re expecting to dish out such advice?
Who put the claimants in this situation?
Who wrote the regulations controlling managed migration?
Who is supposed to ‘manage’ the migration?
And, more seriously, is DWP not under some obligation to look out for the best interests of its claimants rather than sending them into UC potentially at a disadvantage?
No, it isn’t financial advice. There is a specific definition of financial advice which relates generally to specified investment instruments and it certainly isn’t engaged here.
However, the DWP’s long-standing position is that their staff are not supposed to give advice on benefit claims. This is on the basis that if they did so, they would also be assuming responsibility if that advice turned out to be wrong.
It is hardly surprising that the DWP aren’t inviting their staff to try and work out when the best time for people to make a claim for UC would be, given that those staff almost certainly lack the time to ask the right questions and the expertise to give correct answers.