Terms & Conditions

[junderwo]

Schedule 8 & 9 of CTBR & HBR respectively lay down what has to be included in decision notices. My query is regarding cases where IS/JSA(IB) is not paid and you supersede/revise a decision retrospectively.

With Academy software if you go back a number of years or you are dealing with a claim that has had a lot of changes of circumstance you can get decision notices of 50 – 100 pages. As this is poor customer care I am attempting to advise staff what can be removed.

Are you obliged to provide a statement for each “split” in the claim? For example you increase capital by £5000 going back to 8 March 2004 but change nothing else – this produces 20 statements covering various periods.

Do you have to send each statement showing the applicable amount & other income for each split OR can you just include a table in the first page of the letter showing the capital that has been used for each period?
Previous decision notices would already have shown the applicable amount & other income.

[peterdelamothe]

This has been the subject of some debate in the past.

I remember the BFI suggested that you had to provide everything on every decision – including appeal rights. Legally they might be correct but I think the most resonable and clearer position is to have a summary. The IBS users worked with Citizens Advice reps to produce standard letters and formats (with DWP performance standards funding) that I recommend as worth looking at.

[Author]

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