The relevant benefit supersession rule only applies when someone starts to receive a benefit they weren’t previously getting, or the rate increases. Reg 7(2)(i) doesn’t apply when a relevant benefit stoips or decreases.
Presumably these changes were attributable to the same event: DWP decided the claimant was no longer incapable of work and in one fell swoop downgraded him from IB to JSA. So is the start of JSA or the end of IB for supersession purposes? Or to put it another way, are you making a superseding decision purely because JSA has started or for other reasons as well?
I think it is probably correct to say that there are other reasons caught up in this – you are dealing with something more than a simple commencement of a relevant benefit. So you are probably superseding under Reg 7(2)(a) and sadly 8(3) is engaged.
I think the anoraky way to do this is to say that the end of IB is one change, delayed to January by virtue of Reg 8(3), while the start of JSA is another, taking effect from the exact day of the JSA award in September under Reg 8(14). There has therefore been an overpayment attributable to undeclared JSA income, but it is wholly eclipsed by the greater loss of IB income and so Reg 104 in effect allows you just to pick up everything from Jan 07. If you want to be extra-mean, you could say there is a part-week of overpayment back in September when the JSA income kicked in immediately on the day of the award while IB income would have soldiered on to the end of the week had you been superseding under Reg 8(2) and main HB Reg 79(1) at that time. That would be going beyond the call of duty though I think.
P.S. just realised that according to my often-promoted view of the term “overpayment period” in Reg 104, even if there is a part-week overpayment back in September you could reduce it to nothing using some of the surplus underlying entitlement from the end of IB.
So any way you look at it, there is no overpayment and everything is picked up from January 07.
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