Terms & Conditions

[Anonymous]

Hiya
Does anyone know if the DWP is now disregarding grant payments to students who are lone parents as long as they opt not to take a students loan please?
I have a claimant who asserts that the DWP are aware that she is in receipt of a total of £7000 grant but her IS has not been terminated because she has opted not to take a loan this academic year. Is it me being cynical or is she fibbing? 🙄 🙄

[Carol Meredith]

As far as I am aware, even of someone has opted not to take a student loan, the maximum loan that would be available if applied for is taken into account as income. If for some reason she cannot have a loan, then that is a different matter but if it just her choice not to apply for a loan, then the loan as could have been received is taken as income.
Carol

[Anonymous]

The problem with this one is that she is now in receipt of IS. Consequently she is receiving maximum HB even though we know that she has received a grant. When she was asked to if she had notified the DWP, she stated that she had but had been awarded IS because she wasn’t getting a loan this year. CIS shows that her IS is still in payment and they have notes on there showing that she informed them that she was returning to Uni in September 06. She also receives child tax credit with a childcare element. i can’t understand why the DWP are still paying IS. Would it be unfair to suspend the claim and ask her to get confirmation from the DWP stating that they are aware of her income?

[Kevin D]

In my view, if you can show that the DWP are simply plain wrong, AND that if the DWP took into account the clmt’s correct circs the clmt would not be entitled to IS, it *may* be possible to argue that the clmt is not lawfully in receipt of IS. In short, you’d be relying on *some* of the arguments in [b:359fc3dfba]Hamilton[/b:359fc3dfba] – but in a very different context. The potential distinction is that the clmt was, erm, less than entirely honest in Hamilton.

new.hbinfo.org.com/menu2/caselaw/hamilton.rtf

The IS regs can be found on the link below:
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/advisers/docs/lawvols/bluevol/pdf/a6_2501.pdf

See what you think….

Regards

[Anonymous]

Child Tax Credit does not count as income for Income Support purposes.

The child care element confuses things: it is part of the Working Tax Credit scheme and for a single person IS and Working Tax Credit should be 100% mutually exclusive. There is something not right here. Are you sure your claimant is receiving the WTC child care element?

Reg 66A(3) of the IS Regs does say that a student should be treated as having a loan if they could get one – same as HB there.

[Anonymous]

She is definately getting the child care element, Peter and she has provided evidence of her child care costs to back this up. In fact she has got a law centre worker harping on about how much of her childcare costs was taken into account last year and disputing our reasons for requesting proof of the said costs on the basis that the Inland Revenue took the costs into account without her having to provide proof. I think the claim ought to be suspended and the matter reported to the DWP. I also believe that the onus is on the claimant to provide information confirming that she is still entitled to IS in spite of the fact that she is receiving all this other income. What do you think?

[Anonymous]

I think you probably do have reasons for a partial suspension – it’s safe to pay HB based on the worst case and include all her income plus loan (if she still qualifies that way).

An issue has clearly arisen and I think D&A Reg 11 applies.

[Author]

Posts