Terms & Conditions

[jason squire]

Hi all,

wondering if someone can point me in the right direction for some guidance on closed period supersessions…

Circular A6 2009 states: A claimant does not need to make a new claim if you discover that there was no entitlement for a fixed period within an award. The award may be superseded for that period and the supersession only replaces the original decision to that extent.

I read that as if there is a period of nil entitlement for any reason there is no need to make a new claim (if the other conditions are met)

My colleague believes that it only relates to income (the examples given in the circular relate to income only) but I am of the opinion that if there was, perhaps a change of address, and there was a period of no liability (in the past) then closed period supersession rules can be applied.

Can anyone point to further guidance or offer their thoughts?

thank you

[Kevin D]

The debate on the lawfulness or otherwise of closed period supersessions (for HB & CTB) has been thrashed to death on other threads (with no consensus) so it will be for your LA to decide whether the DWP is correct on that specific point. For transparency, my view remains that CPSs are not lawful. However, putting that to one side…

If closed period supersessions are lawful, then they must be lawful across the board, irrespective of the nature of the change. If your LA believes CPSs to be unlawful on one type of change, I can’t see why it be any more lawful on another type of change.

[Anonymous]

Some of the case law supporting closed period supersessions is concerned with contribution-based incapacity benefits where there were periods in which the claimant had failed to satisfy threshold eligibility conditions – nothing to do with income at all. So if you can make closed period superseding decisions at all, they apply in all circumstances. I see no problem with them.

HBINFO put out a detailed briefing note setting out both sides of the argument a while back – I would have expected to find it here: https://hbinfo.org/guidance/notes-hbinfo but I am not sure whether this area is under construction, I couldn’t access it. I wrote the note so I hope it wasn’t too biased towards my view about the issue.

[Anonymous]

I think that note vanished when the new site went live – I certainly haven’t been able to find it since then. Hopefully someone has a back-up copy…?

[jason squire]

thanks for the views. We are (re)writing some procedure notes and I want to include something on CPS. If anyone finds a link to the hbinfo notes I’d appreciate it.

Thanks again.

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