UC and as yet unclaimed occupational pension

After checking the UC legislation, I asked the following question about clarification of UC regulations re an occupational pension to UC on 18/01/2024:
"I am not yet at state pension age (5 years away), but I have been notified by a former employment defined benefits pension scheme that this year is my normal retirement date for their pension (the state pension age for women was different when I left this company back in 1998.) I have been sent a pack with options to either take a pension/lump sum, transfer the pension or defer it. My query is whether, because I am under state pension age, I can safely defer the pension until my state pension retirement age without it affecting my UC, or, if I did defer it, would UC consider it to be unearned notional income and therefore deprivation of income, and deduct an amount for the pension even though I wasn't in receipt of it."
The UC case manager was unable to answer the question and referred it to the Tech Team. I finally received a response to my query on 18/04/2024 (after chasing it up in Feb.):
"I have just received the response from the technical team they are advising this would be considered against UC entitlement as notional income but a decision would be need to be completed by a Decision maker. Regards U.C."
Is it just me, or is this a very vague answer? They still haven't answered my query as to whether I have to take this occupational pension or not - or is that why it would have to be referred to a decision maker for someone to arbitrarily decide?
I previously put the same query to CAB and got 2 completely opposing answers - 1 that it would be deducted from UC regardless of whether I took the pension or not, but the 'proof' they sent for this decision referred to if I was of state pension age. The next advisor told me that I didn't have to access the pension because I'm not of state pension age.
I'm so confused, and the longer I don't access this new pension if I have to, the more overpayment I'll owe to UC and potentially ESA, council tax reduction and water rates reduction! To make matters even more stressful I'm 5 months into awaiting the outcome of my PIP review (and yes, I referred to B&W guidance in completing the review.)
If anyone can shed any light on this and refer me to the relevant legislation/guidance I'd be eternally grateful! I don't even know whether to respond to the UC's 'answer' or not, or if I'm just digging a bigger and bigger hole for myself!