You might be thinking of CH/0939/2004, where the claimant said that a DWP officer had told him he didn’t need to report starting work to the Council because the DWP would send a notice through. If that was true, it would be official error (the case was sent for rehearing to investigate all the facts – something about dodgy rent receipts – the Commissioner doesn’t go into much detail).
The Sier v Cambridge case is the one that Councils rely on generally where the LA or DWP might have done something wrong, but common sense says the overpayment was the claimant’s fault. Sier was pretty blatant – he moved to another town without telling Cambridge council and continued receiving HB for three years (he kept his Cambridge pad as a weekend retreat)! Although the local DWP didn’t pass on the information about his change of address, it was more Mr Sier’s fault than theirs that this overpayment happened.
Other cases of IS/JSA(ib) ending are likely to be less brass-necked than that. The claimant will innocently assume that DWP provides a one-stop service covering all benefits. Innocent or not, it’s still the claimant’s mistake to fail to follow instructions to report changes direct to the Council. But if an official has said or done anything to encourage that assumption, and then the DWP doesn’t send the cancellation notice promptly, there may be an official error.
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