Terms & Conditions

[Anonymous]

Has anyone seen their scan from the Pension Service yet?

I have recived ours and had a look at it. On the whole it looks ok but I am a bit concerned about the start dates of Pension Credit (as are our software suppliers SX3).

I was expecting all awards to start on 6/10/03 but they don’t! The majority of them start on dates ranging from 7/10/03 to 11/10/03. Does that mean that te change of circumstances won;t take place until 13/10/03 or is it 6/10/03 because of the change in regs?

I have sent an e-mail off to DWP querying the dates (sent on Monday) but so far I have’nt had a reply!

[Julian Hobson]

Jenni – why are SX3 concerned, I’ve been asking them for the facility to Data Load (to no avail) are you an iWorld site. Or are they worried about the way the functionality will work (any news on the release yet)

As far as effective dates go I’m confused. DWP say at Q283 of the Question log that reg 68(3)(b) applies but I don’t think that really has the effect they suggest. What about 68B but that refers to changes after A day where PC already in payment.

I don’t think there is anything in the regs that says cases will be amended from 06 Oct 03 even those awarded from that day, so do they all change 13 Oct 03 ?

[Anonymous]

I think you have discovered an intriguing bug in the legislation. Reg 68(4) should have been amended to include the words “…or Reg 68B” in the list of coinciding changes. That would have been enough to pull everything back to 6 October. But that’s not the way it is at the moment.

So lets have a look at what we’ve got.

Reg 68B(1) appears to confine the Reg to cases where Pension Credit is already in payment and then changes, so as Julian says this is unlikely to affect anyone as quickly as the week beginning 6 October. But once again, the drafting is confusing: paras (5) and (6) read to me as if they are concerned with new awards of Pension Credit to people who weren’t already getting it. If that is correct, then Reg 68(B)(5) & (6) would presumably apply to awards commencing in the week beginning 6 October? That would mean Monday 13 October.

Nevertheless, all pensioner claimants will have to be reassessed from 6 October under the new standard means-test rules in any case: anyone who would be better off under the new means-testing (e.g. over 65s or anyone with tariff income) is going to be affected by a change in the Regs. That must be picked up under Reg 68(3)(b). So they all get the benefit of the more generous means-testing from 6 October. But people who are awarded SC only will then have to have the SC included as income, and other income tweaked to match the AIF, from Monday 13th in accordance with Reg 68(B)(5).

Common sense says do the whole lot from 6 October. You would have to be the most wilfully officious auditor to criticise any council for doing that.

[Anonymous]

Julian

SX3 have confirmed that the release will be delivered this week so it should be on their website on Friday! We have IT on standby for loading it into test next week.

I am on the SX3 Benefit Product Group so have had a sneak preview of the draft release notes and the conversion script. Conversion seems to be working ok!

As far as I know there is going to be a dataload facility whcih is why they wanted to see our scan. It will match on NINO and you can switch to update all matches straight away or look at and update them individually froma new collector screen. The last time I spoke to them they were hoping to get it into this release so fingers crossed!!!

I’ll let you know what DWP say about the dates!

[chris harvey]

Have other authorities received their CD yet? We have seen nothing here yet. If you have got yours was it addressed to “The Benefits Manager” or somewhere else. Does it contain a contact number/email I can chase up our missing CD?
Thanks in advance for any help/suggestions

[janish]

We got our CD on Monday. It was sent to our neighbouring authority, Angus. We are Dundee. Angus didn’t get theirs.
At the CIPFA day yesterday the DWP speaker promised that all LA’s would have their CDs by 12 noon ( Thu).
They had been put in the wrong envelopes.
Contact is Martin Dennehy 01253 689279 if you still don’t have yours.
Ours has about 5500 GCs and only 100 SCs.
Apparently they are 6 weeks behind processing new PC claims, they are concentrating instead on clearing the inceased MIG claims.

[RobBox]

I received the scan today. It doesn’t seem to have the right LA number on either the disc or the spreadsheet, but the information within it is mine! That said I have come across a few details of addressess that are in neighbouring LA areas.

Begs the question that if I have got theirs who has got mine?

Also, within the whole scan appear to only have 20 SC only cases.

Most of the start dates are not 06.10.03 but days within that week and there seems to be some GC cases with an AIF figure and some with an entry of 00.00?

[Author]

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