Terms & Conditions

[Clive Hayward]

Really enjoyed the “advanced appeals” day yesterday. Back to more mundane matters today….

Can anybody point us in the right direction on this one please?

We have a case where an HB claimant has an American husband. She is British, although spent many years in the US. She has returned to live in the UK and we are satisfied she is habitually resident.

Her husband has a US Disability Pension and is very unlikely to work (lung complaint).

The situation is as yet a little unclear, but from a couple of telephone conversations we understand that he has approached Jobcentreplus about getting an NI number and they have told him they won’t issue one “unless you get a job”.

I see from G7 2006 that DWP say it is sufficient for a person to have “Applied for a NINO”.

What is your view on how a person can be said to satisfy (or not) point 3 please?
What do you think is meant by “applied for”?
Does “application” have to be made in writing? Is there a specific application form?
Do you think this man would normally be able to be issued with an NINO?
I’ve advised the claimant to get JCP to put any refusal in writing, but it seems they may have refused to do this.

All suggestions gratefully accepted!

[Anonymous]

This seems to be quite a common problem. The Social Security (Crediting and Treatment of Contributions and National Insurance Numbers) Regulations 2001 requires DWP to issue a NINO to people in various situations, mainly when they start work. I understand the Regs are to be amended (or have been recently) to include a requirement that the applicant demonstrates a right to work in the UK when applying. This presumably has led some DWP staff to conclude that people in your claimant’s partner’s position are not entitled to a NINO.

However, the DWP’s internal “SNAP” code (secure number allocation procedure) does cater for this: where a claimant is required to satisfy the s1(1A) & (1B) NINO requirements for both themselves and their partner, the code says that a NINO should be issued outside the strict requirements of the 2001 Regs. Your local DWP liaison officer should be aware of this and should be able to intervene to get the NINO issued. Meanwhile, it is very strongly arguable that your claimant’s partner has satisfied the second limb of s1(1B) anyway by applying for a NINO and cooperating with the process.

[chrisb]

I’ve copied this from the “long awaited court case” thread.

Paragraph 44 of the Court of Appeal judgement states:

Quote:
… section 1(1B)(b) requires the person concerned to make an application for a NINO to be allocated … [The] Housing Benefit claim form did not constitute such an application…

This seems to imply that the DCI1LA is now defunct, as even if we send one off to DWP, the person themselves won’t have applied for a NINO, so the subsection isn’t satisfied, and so we can’t pay any benefit.

The effect being that the judgement makes it harder for us to pay benefit to couples where the partner doesn’t have a NINO than it was before.

Does this interpretation make sense?

[Clive Hayward]

Thanks both of you. Useful info re DWP practices!

I must admit my sympathies were strongly with the claimant in this case, but it seems now to be “game over” because I am advised that she has withdrawn her claim!!

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