Still working with my client on her complaint, perhaps someone can help on this bit. One of the errors made by the LA involves the Lone Parent run-on when starting work in 2004. They only awarded 2 weeks, and claim that they had to wait for DWP to inform them that she was entitled to 4 weeks. They eventually awarded the full 4 weeks in 2005, after she pointed out that she hadn't had it. Does the waiting for DWP thing sound plausible?

It did sometimes get confusing with the interaction between the Lone Parent Run-on and the Benefit Run-on (AKA Extended Payment). Under the LPRO, the lone parent got a 2-week run-on of IS which meant two weeks of max HB. Of course lone parents in this situation also often qualified for the 4-week extended payment of HB/CTB. But the two schemes were meant to be concurrent, not consecutive - you weren't meant to get more than 4 weeks max HB/CTB in total.

Sometimes it wasn't clear whether the end of IS date notified by DWP included the LPRO or not. I am not saying the delay was justified in this case or not but it is sort of plausible that they needed to do some checking. Whether it needed to take so long with the claimant having to remind them about it is something else again!

Thank you Andy