Reply To: Calling all LA’s!
AnonymousI have had to contact the help line on many occasions about claims where there have been numerous award notices issued. I normally ask for a list of all the payments issued, the dates of awards and award amounts etc., then I can work out what changes to HB/CTB are required. but you do have to be persistent.
Although the staff are very helpful, not all appear to have a thorough knowledge of the screens available.
There have been occasions however when my queries have not been resolved and I have been sending these to Lucy Da Silva at DWP.
I hope other authorities are doing the same – problems will not be resolved unless we identify them.
I have also made a suggestion that award notices are numbered – it is not clear when a claimant provides an award notice whether there have been any previous awards and how many! I feel that this would be useful to LA’s.
I have been informed that further guidance is to be issued shortly for one of the points I have queried with DWP. This is where an overpayment of CTC is recovered from WTC (or vice versa):
The net weekly amount should be used according to the TC guide, but you have to be a detective to work out why the amount paid to the bank account is no where near the weekly amount you calculate for HB/CTB!
Hope this helps.