Terms & Conditions

[Anonymous]

Clarification greatly appreciated on this one, as we can’t seem to come up with a solution we all agree on!

When the DWP notify us of a termination of I/S or JSA for a past period, but the current entitlement is unaffected, our past reaction was to input an assumed high income for the period in question to nil the benefit, then apply underlying entitlement if we received the relevant proof. However our appeals officer has a problem with us doing this. We then decided that we should actually just ‘cancel’ the benefit for the period and again offer underlying entitlement. We have again been told by our appeals officer that we shouldn’t do this, because we then don’t have a current claim for the ongoing award of benefit, or the period of ‘cancellation’, and obviously termination of I/S and JSA is now just a change of circs.

How are other authorities getting aroung this problem? Because it’s all retrospective there’s no reason to suspend the current entitlement so we’re not really sure how best to deal with this.

[Anonymous]

I think your appeals officer is incorrect, as it does not matter whether there is a current award of HB / CTB.

As Kevin D is fond of saying, and I fully agree with him – U/E is not an option – if the evidence is supplied it is obligatory (Reg 104).
The point is that you don’t need a claim for the period of the o/p, as you are not “paying Benefit”, just reducing the overpayment to the “correct” amount. All you therefore need is acceptable proof of income. 8)

[markp]

As an appeals officer I agree with what Jon has said. U/E isn’t an option but has to be considered if you can do so. If you don’t have sufficient info you request it and then act on the provision, or lack of, this.

Don’t have any problem with your approach to draw an adverse inference on a superseding decision and then apply U/E once able to do so.

Do I know what I'm doing? The jury's out on that........................

[Anonymous]

Mark
We must stop agreeing like this!! 😉
Apart from the fact we work for the same LA, and therefore disagreement is obligatory (no HB reg, just Sod’s Law – but this has been referred to as the most important benefit reg of the lot!! 😀 ), I am going to be starting to think you are becoming less cynical!! 😯 8)

[david kearney]

I’m assuming Kevin D isnt about. We are still doing julierob1 was previously doing, but as KevinD is even fonder to point out, any period of nil-entitlement means the claim is no more and must be followed by a new claim. So if you dont get the details to apply u/e, or if they dont qualify, you cant just leave the current claim running (unless you can find something else that you can call a new claim. There are a few threads on the subject on the old board. Legally correct but an admin nightmare for the retrospective is/jsa ending cases

[Kevin D]

Another of my great fondnesses (is that a word?) is to glibly refer to older threads – it’s very satisfying when the search engine works…. 😯

new.hbinfo.org.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6784

new.hbinfo.org.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6720

🙂

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your responses, however you seem to be focusing on the U/E side, which we do not have an issue with. The actual problem is if we nil for the period that I/S or JSA is not in payment, then we should have a new form for the ongoing award, however if it is a retrospective change we would not have a new claim form. So if we apply adverse inference and nil the claim for a period in the past, but there is no issue with the current award, should we automatically be sending a new claim form for that period? How are you getting around this part?

[markp]

Julie,

The point, as I see it, is that you are calculating a retrospective OP due to an IS/JSA break and that has to be subject to the UE rules. You could choose to request the details on an application form but I don’t see that the matter has to be treated as a new claim. That is why we, in our replies, have concentrated on the UE side of things and therefore I don’t think that a new form is strictly necessary. Once you have, or do not have, the appropriate income/capital details to calculate UE you can net down the OP (or leave it as a gross OP if you don’t have any, or sufficient details to reduce it). Of course this carries appeal rights and so if details are supplied with a dispute within a month of your decision you would need to consider revising the decision on the OP.

I think that this covers your query about whether or not you need a new application

Do I know what I'm doing? The jury's out on that........................

[Kevin D]

Following Julie’s second post, my reading is that the question relates to how to deal with a break in entitlement (i.e. a retrospective period of nil entitlement).

If that is correct, the earlier links should, hopefully, help.

Regards

[arenton]

Hello Julie

i think most folk (judging by previous posts on here) would deal with your situation by

1/ requesting details from claimant for the gap period in IS/JSA,

2/ if provided and they still qualify- just key changes as a ch of Circs, and allow benefit to continue,

3/ if details not provided, or provided but claimant does not qualify in the gap, the claim must be cancelled.

4/ you can then add underlying entitltment for the period you KNOW they remained on IS/JSA, up to the “paid up to” date of the claim.

5/ Any more benefit after that needs a NEW claim to be made.

Thats how it seems to me anyway.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for that. It’s what we’d thought would be the best way to go, we just couldn’t quite see how to get there. Hopefully this is something they’ll iron out for us sometime in the near future. 😆

[Anonymous]

I agree with arenton’s summary.

One point to be aware of is that since you cannot superseed a nil entitlement decision – any benefit you pay after determining a period of nil entitlement and without a new claim being made might be considered to be paid outside of the benefit scheme and may not be recoverable through the HB regs should a further overpayment arise.

[Author]

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