It’s still good law, but needs to be read alongside two others where the circumstances were not dissimilar: CH/0163/2003 and CH/0454/2005. These three cases need to be very carefully distinguished. The apportionment of blame in non-dep cases depends very much on who knew what and when. For example:
– did the Council already know that a teenager had become a non-dep before the age of 18? If so, shouldn’t the Council have known there was lilely to be a deduction from 18 onwards?
– if a 16 or 17 year-old non-dep starts work, the claimant should tell the Council about this even though it won’t affect the non-dep deduction until the non-dep is 18
– if there is no reason to think that a rising 18 year old has already become a non-dep, it’s a bit hasty to slap on a non-dep charge just because they have reached 18: chances are they are still at school
And so on. All very tricky
Incidentally, the Commissioner is wrong about the effect of D&A Reg 18(3)(b) in this case. For the proper approach to out of time revisions, see CH/3009/2002 and the Westminster v Beltekian case (both on this site).
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