Terms & Conditions

[beth_daly]

Good morning all,

WE have claims that were assessed, the assessor realsied that they had done something wrong and reasessed the claim for the same period on the same day. No money went out and we deem these corrections as technical error overpayments.

We are in discussions with our auditor about this as he beleives that these overpayments should be deemed LA Error. This is because the LA made the mistakes and the overpayment resulting from the correction is the LA’s fault.

I have countered this arguement as only the reduced payment, after the correction had been made would have gone out to the claimant.

Does anyone have any opinions about whether my auditor or myself is correct?

Thank you

Beth

[seanosul]

Neither you or the auditor is correct. If no payment has been made then the net amount only that is actually paid should be claimed. No expenditure should be claimed for the overpayment as there was no overpayment.

[Anonymous]

Totally agree with Sean – an amount has to be paid for there to be an overpayment – this is just an adjustment before payment was made.
No overpayment – no comment! 8)

[Anonymous]

Sean’s right, but your computer system may not be able to do this.

Classifying them as technical overpayments has the same financial effect as deducting them from expenditure. Our auditors accept that treatment, since users do make mistakes.

[Anonymous]

Except……

If you are talking about CTB, and you have on-line posting, you are creating an overpayment. Whether it is corrected the next minute or the next day, the transactions have been made.

I’m no expert, but off the top of my head, the only technical part should be the future CTB overpayment. If the correction causes an overpayment for a past period, that would be LA error. I think.

Cheers,

Darren

[beth_daly]

I agree that the payment has gone over to ctax but no notification would have been sent if the correction was applied before the end of the day.

I have just gone into our (Academy) test system and awarded benefit on a claim and then cancelled using LA Error as the reason. The overpayment stands as an overpayment and does not net off against the expenditure.

[Anonymous]

That’s a fair point. If the decision letter hasn’t been sent, a decision cannot be said to have been made (or something like that). I’ll let wiser heads than mine argue this one out……

[Anonymous]

Even in the case of CTB I think you can argue that there has been no overpayment. The method of payment in law is to reduce the amount charged. Computer systems might handle that internally as a credit “from” one system “to” another, but the payment is not legally accomplished until the claimant is billed for a reduced amount of tax – see s138(1) of the Administration Act. Your computer has said to itself “I think I’ll bill the claimant [£x – 500] for the year, no hang on make that [£x – 200]”. A bill is issued for £x – 200, which is correct and there hasd not been any overpayment, technical or otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Hmm, I’m not so sure about the CTB, particularly if the auditor were to take a strict interpretation of the following:

The Council Tax Benefit Regulations 2006

82. Meaning of excess benefit

In this Part “excess benefit” means any amount which has been allowed by way of council tax benefit and to which there was no entitlement under these Regulations (whether on the initial decision or as subsequently revised or superseded or further revised or superseded)

[Kevin D]

Just to echo….

If benefit has not been paid (or allowed), then there cannot be an overpayment. For rebates and CTB, my view is that it is a question of whether benefit had actually gone over to the respective rent / CTAX accounts. However, that does not necessarily preclude Peter B’s observations. If there were a series of administrative adjustments, done one after the other, it could be reasonably argued that they form part of one single entity. But, I think any significant delay between adjustments would almost certainly be seen as “separate” and, therefore, open to being seen as “official error”.

In [b:8f2538951b]CH/2529/2005 (para 7)[/b:8f2538951b], it was found that uncashed cheques did not count as being overpaid.

As for notifications, the status of a decision is not dependant on a notification. A notification is just that; it is not a decision. It is simply (strong) evidence of a decision. This is reflected in Cmmr decisions in cases where reps have tried to suggest that the absence of a notification shows there was no decision. Cmmrs have consistently found that other evidence *may* be acceptable – such as computer prints showing transaction dates. Even in the few cases where Cmmrs have found against LAs, this has been down to the LAs failure to produce not only notifs, but also any OTHER credible evidence to support the contention that a decision was made.

Regards

[seanosul]

[quote:661a51efd1=”darkside”]Sean’s right, but your computer system may not be able to do this.

Classifying them as technical overpayments has the same financial effect as deducting them from expenditure. Our auditors accept that treatment, since users do make mistakes.[/quote:661a51efd1]

Demand that it does it!! Unless the subsidy software works correctly it is NOT WORKING. You do not accept it from contractors so do not accept it from Software Houses. I am getting increasingly frustrated by LAs accepting absolute rubbish from software houses. I have started to train the people here into demanding proper service from a company we pay a good lot of money to each year (for a start by getting them to read the contract they agreed to).

Stop having sychophantic benefit managers as head of your user group and start demanding that the software we throw millions of pounds of public money at works.

I have heard that one of the big players won a giant chunk of performance funding to release software that it is already releasing. For supporting that bid the LAs who backed that waste get 3 dyas of free consultancy to find out if they are using the product they supplied correctly! Whooppee Doo. I hear Microsoft is releasing a new version of Windows with enhanced security provisions, shall we give them a grant as well?

Rant over.

[Anonymous]

Call me picky, but I can’t resist this one…

[quote:c47cc04757]psychophantic[/quote:c47cc04757]

Someone who compliments you effusively whilst sticking knives into you?

[seanosul]

corrected!

[Christine]

Hello

We use Academy and if you create an o/p in error and the correction creates an u/p it works ok, but not the other way around.

If an u/p is created in error and then the correction creates an o/p, the correction flag in the assessment frame sorts out the stats and the actual netting off benefit-wise so the payment is correct but the subsidy is still wrong. The quickest way around it is to go into the tables and change the date stamps on the transactions to make the system think that the overpayment came first followed by the underpayment and then it netts off nicely. Messy but it works 😆

[Christine]

Hello

We use Academy and if you create an o/p in error and the correction creates an u/p it works ok, but not the other way around.

If an u/p is created in error and then the correction creates an o/p, the correction flag in the assessment frame sorts out the stats and the actual netting off benefit-wise so the payment is correct but the subsidy is still wrong. The quickest way around it is to go into the tables and change the date stamps on the transactions to make the system think that the overpayment came first followed by the underpayment and then it netts off nicely. Messy but it works 😆

[Author]

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