Terms & Conditions

[Anonymous]

We receive information today from the DWP where a past period of benefit should not have been in payment eg Income Support not in payment for June 03 – Sept 03. Income Support is still currently in payment.

Our initial reaction would be to go down Reg 13 route followed by suspension. If info wasnt received, then we would terminate the period in question and issue overpayment letters. If info came back within timescale, we would apply underlying entitlement for the period in question.

Would you terminate benefit altogether and request a NEW CLAIM for the benefit to continue. If so, can you advise rules/regs which cover this?

Ongoing issue within our team at the moment.

[Stalbansbenefits]

Child Support, Pension and Social Security Act 2000

Schedule 7.

2. Decisions on claims for benefit.
Where at any time a claim for housing benefit or council tax benefit is decided by a relevant authority-
(a) the claim shall not be regarded as subsisting after that time; and
(b) accordingly, the claimant shall not (without making a further claim) be entitled to the benefit on the basis of circumstances not obtaining at that time.

[paul_edmund]

Hmm, this is an interesting scenario and something my authority has looked into, one issue that affects this is whether IS stopped before or after April 04 as the rules are different.

Prior to April 04 where IS stopped the benefit claim ended and a new claim needed to be invited (under the old renewal provisions), can’t see there is much choice on this.

If the IS stops after April 04 then you need to establish continuing entitlement to decide if the claim should remain in payment. Therefore your option is to suspend (doubt over entitlement etc) and ask for the information, this can then present the following outcomes:
– info supplied person and on circumstances remains entitled.
– info supplied and person not entitled, this would of course mean claim comes to an end and a new one is needed.
– Info not supplied therefore ended under DA regs.

As we see it you don’t really have any choices but to follow the above approaches. You can’t just enter £999.99, for starters you have all sorts of Data Protections issues (holding information not appropriate / accurate). Creating a period of nil entitlement is a circumstance that ends a claim, therefore for it to continue would you not need a new application!

That is my 2 penneth anyway.

[Kevin D]

An earlier thread looked at this very issue (i.e. a retrospective gap in HB/CTB).

new.hbinfo.org.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4151

It’s also worth bearing in mind that any “benefit” paid without a valid claim may not be recoverable in the event of a subsequent overpayment – see [b:f775c52a20]CH/0269/2006[/b:f775c52a20] (Information Issue 05 06 – the CD will shortly be on this site too).

And, as an aside, there will be zero subsidy…..

Regards

[Anonymous]

We checked this with DWP ,on this issue, when circular A31 was first released. this is a copy of their reply. The original question highlighted a two week period, over a year ago, where income support had ended.

“[i:186de699b5]I can’t see how you can suspend benefit for a period where that benefit has already been paid. The simplest approach is to make a closed period supersession decision in respect of the two weeks and take what ever further action is necessary in respect of that period. This will leave the benefit paid subsequent to the two period intact and there is no need to cast about looking for a way a way to restore entitlement to benefit that has already been properly paid.”[/i:186de699b5]

[Kevin D]

kully,

Very interesting response!

However, [b:278d6fcd56]CH/0269/2006[/b:278d6fcd56] strongly suggests that the DWP advice is wrong. Once there is a period of “nil” entitlement, there is no claim on which benefit can be “awarded” or paid.

Regards

[Anonymous]

Yes, it is a very strange response. It would be interesting to ask them which Reg they use to justify the existence of “closed supersession decision” since as far as I know such a thing doesn’t exist.

In legal terms, you supercede once and then supercede the first supersession to acheive a limited period change like this. However, if your first decision results in nil entitlement then you can’t then supersede it. You would then award underlying entitlement for the period of entitlement and thus acheive the same effect.

I often wonder about things like this though because the logical conclusion would be that if you go back and adjust a limited period in the past all subsequent decisions are effectively remade since the legislation no longer includes decisions which are only effective for a limited time. I don’t know if anyone can clarify this?

[mitch2105]

This subject is somewhat confusing to me – either that or Im having a bad day !!

So can I clarify then – if we receive eg a notification today that INS ceased for a 2wk period in July 2003 and we apply underlying entitlement or no info is received and the result is a nil entitlement for that period…..

Am I right in thinking that we need a new claim and backdate request as claim will be terminated completely back to July 2003?

thanks.

[mitch2105]

This subject is somewhat confusing to me – either that or Im having a bad day !!

So can I clarify then – if we receive eg a notification today that INS ceased for a 2wk period in July 2003 and we apply underlying entitlement or no info is received and the result is a nil entitlement for that period…..

Am I right in thinking that we need a new claim and backdate request as claim will be terminated completely back to July 2003?

thanks.

[jmembery]

Yes, that’s how I understand it. There is no problem if the evidence/information is provided to calculate underlying entitlement, but if either the evidence/information is not provided, or it is provided but the claimant proves to be not entitled for those two weeks then you would need a new claim form.

There would, however, only be a two week overpayment as the rest would be covered by underlying entitlement with the claimant being on IS.

(PS I am using the term Underlying Entitlement here loosely)

[mitch2105]

I understand the 2 wk o/payment – would the new claim be required for the current benefit to continue? What happens if they never come back to us?

Sorry to labour the point on this one.

[jmembery]

Yes, a new claim would be required for the ongoing benefit. The claim effectvly “ended” in July 2003, there was just a massive overpayment period most of which was covered by UE.

If they never return a new claim then their would be no new claim (hence no more HB/CTB)

[mitch2105]

So do we apply underlying entitlement for the period after the nil entitlement ie for period after 2wk until terminated date – regardless of whether they come back to us or not ?

[Accura]

if the LA has the info in order to calculate u/e it is obliged to apply it in order to reduce any o/p for the same period.

– cancel back
– request info if required
– apply u/e where possible
– invite new claim and b/dating if necessary
– bang head against wall
– question the principles of u/e
– have a nice cup of tea and count to ten

Enjoy! 😀

[Anonymous]

I think that means “yes”, Elaine. 😆 8)

[Author]

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