Rightsnet discussion forum

Social Fund Funeral Payment - cheque payable to Funeral Director

2012-05-10T09:48:34Z

Client accepted as responsible for funeral of her mother - the bill was paid and now Social Fund have sent her a cheque payable to the Director. I am just checking there will not be a problem with the bill having already been paid? Can they simply re-issue the cheque payable to her?

Thanks!

Permitted Work under UC?

2012-04-24T17:19:40Z

Has anyone heard if there will be PW allowed under UC?(with appropriate earnings disregard of course!)
No mention of it in CPAG’s ‘UC What you need to know’ publication and haven’t seen any reference to it anywhere else

A4E Emma Harrison: nice work if you can get it

2012-02-22T12:47:06Z

Big piece on Emma Harrison, CEO of A4E, one of the prime contractors in the government’s Work Programme (in every sense of the word).

The chair of the public accounts committee, the former Labour minister Margaret Hodge, says aspects of A4e’s past record on welfare-to-work are “abysmal”; one of her Tory colleagues has used the word “dreadful”. Moreover, during her committee’s proceedings two weeks ago, Hodge loudly called into question the amount of money A4e takes from the government, and how much goes into the pockets of its senior figures.

One of the most illuminating conversations I have is with an insider at a charity that is one of A4e’s sub-contractors on the Work Programme. Harrison’s image might be that of a workaholic go-getter, but this source tells me that A4e has handed them hardly any work at all: they have been working with A4e since the start of the Work Programme in June last year, and have had “less than 10” people referred to them. They suspect that they were mere “bid candy”, inserted into A4e’s pitch to the government so as tick the right big society boxes, but now all but marginalised. This suggestion blurs into another allegation made about A4e’s relationship with its Work Programme partners: that it has a habit of creaming off easy cases and handing people with ingrained problems – drugs and alcohol issues, usually – to charities and social enterprises.

But there is a bigger issue: whether, particularly in times like these, the government should be allowing people such as Harrison to take so much money from the public purse, particularly when the results seem so uncertain and the payback seems to include all that negative publicity.

Emma Harrison: nice work if you can get it

Private Eye also do a piece in their latest issue, titled “Welfare to Work: Cash in the Attic, which goes over similar ground, as well as noting A4E’s latest accounts to March 2011 showing a 57 per cent increase to £15.1m. They note that “Making the right political noises seems to have paid off for Harrison, who has been appointed as David Cameron’s ‘families champion’ too”

Re: Court of Appeal decision - size criteria and disability

2012-05-15T11:00:57Z

i think paul trelour may remember the start of this battle…it’s been a long haul, but you can imagine our delight…

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2012/629.html

no news yet on whether the SSWP will appeal…

Commercial/Contrived

2012-05-14T17:04:30Z

I’m looking for R v Sollihull MBC ex parte Simpson (1995?) and also R (mcKay) v Barking and Dagenham - (not sure about this at all).

It’s for help with challenging an alleged non-commercial/contrived tenancy

If anyone can help I’d be very grateful

Cheers
Sue

Payments on Revision

2012-05-16T12:23:29Z

Hi, I’m new to Welfare Rights and something I wanted to check on is payments during a revision or recon. I’m aware that when a client completes a GL24 and wishes to proceed with an appeal that once their GL24 is received their benefit is released under ‘pending appeal’ rules. However, Can anyone clarify if the same rules apply if a GL24 isn’t filled out but a reconsideration/revision is asked for? Basically, does a client receive benefit payments when they are asking for a revision/recon.
Cheers

Employment & Support Allowance - Payment of Work Related Activity Component

2012-03-16T14:18:01Z

I have just won at the First Tier Tribunal in Norwich on the 15th March 2012 with regards a decision about ESA that may have consequences on a national level. I argued that applicants who have not had an ATOS medical assessment within the 13 week assessment period are entitled to the work related activity component (“WRAC”) from the end of week 13 up until a Decision Maker finally finds the applicant fit for work (if this being the case) as a result of finally attending an ATOS medical. The conditions for payment of the WRAC are in Section 4(5) of the Welfare Reform Act 2007. Firstly my client had not been deemed to have limited capability for work related activity under Reg 30 ESA Regs as he merely supplied a GP’s sick note in order to claim ESA.The assessment phase is described in Reg 4(1)&(2) of the ESA Regs. The DWP argued the assessment phase continues indefinately (past 13 weeks) until an ATOS medical is carried out and a decision is made. I argued Reg 4(1) needed to be followed (13 weeks only) as reg. 4(2) was not engaged as my client had not attended an ATOS medical within the 13 weeks and was deemed to have limited capability for work under Reg 30 ESA, therefore 4(2)(a)&(b) were not engaged! The Tribunal found in my favour and instructed the DWP to make the WRAC payment from week 13 onwards even though my client had not attended an ATOS medical. Quite simply the DWP cannot keep clients waiting month after month for an ATOS medical and therefore be financialy penalized through no fault of their own. Obviously we await the posibility that the Sec of State will wish to appeal this decision.

J.Mckendrick

DLA reform: coalition is exaggerating benefit fraud for its own benefit

2012-05-14T14:59:57Z

Further to today’s rightsnet news story on Iain Duncan Smith defends plan to take 500,000 claimants off disability benefits, Amelia Gentleman of the Guardian has published a very good response - DLA reform: coalition is exaggerating benefit fraud for its own benefit

Few people would argue with the government’s desire to tackle benefit fraud. But more problematic is the persistent exaggeration of the scale of abuse within the system that accompanies any statement of reform.

Contributory ESA and Carers Allowance NI contributions

2012-05-15T11:48:19Z

I’m sure the answer is staring me in the face but I can’t fully get my head round the information in CPAG or Disability Rights Handbook.

A client has written to me stating the following:-

“I have been receiving Carers Allowance for 6 years because I have been caring for my mum. My GP has given me a medical certificate for a month. My mum died 2 months ago.
I have had a letter to say I have not paid enough NI contributions in the years 2010 and 2011 to qualify for ESA, so I am not eligible for contribution-based ESA..
My award letter for CA in 2006 stated that you would normally receive class 1 NI credits which may entitle you to other benefits in the future:-
“You will normally get Class 1 NI credit for each week that you are paid CA….These credits may help you to qualify for certain other benefits such as State Pension, Incapacity Benefit or contribution-based Jobseekers Allowance.”
(My CA award letter 02/10/06)
ESA has replaced Incapacity Benefit, so I believe this should apply to ESA.
I have been receiving CA continuously for 6 years.
Hope you can advise me.”

What I went to know is whether NI contributions from Carer’s Allowance alone fully satisfy the second condition for qualifying for contributory ESA as I have read conflicting information and also had some clients contacting me who have been informed that they qualify for contributory ESA and have just been in receipt of CA and income support for many years whereas the above client has been told she is not entitled. Should she challenge the decision? If so what information would she need to provide that she qualifies for contributory ESA?

I hope someone can clarify this for me.

Legal aid procurement – 2013+ contracts

2012-05-08T12:29:23Z

Thanks to Phil Jew of AdviceUK, who has shared this information about future legal aid procurement, following the passing of the Legal Aid Act. The Legal Services Commission (LSC) has issued an “Outline of tender process” document, available here: Outline of tender process

This is a brief note of information that AdviceUK has obtained regarding the future approach of the LSC to procurement of what is left of legal aid. This note was written before the above outline of tender process was published so it does repeat some if it, but it also contains some additional information, gleaned from discussions that advice networks have had with LSC.

The LSC’s tendering process will begin with the publishing of a Pre-qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) on 21st May 2012 for the following types of contract:

• Face to face (F2F) Housing and debt – Though it is not clear if you have to bid for both together and whether you need an ‘authorised litigator’
• F2F Family
• F2F Asylum and residual non-asylum work
• Housing Possession Court Duty Scheme – in about 35 areas
• Mediation
• Telephone advice in Housing & Debt, Discrimination, Education (SEN) and Family.

Submitting a PQQ does not commit you to a full tender to deliver.

The existing operator service will operate the mandatory telephone gateway. It will be evaluated before a tendering process for the contract to deliver from possibly 2014 onwards. The telephone Invitation to Tender (ITT) will be published in August. Those that pass the PQQ stage will be invited to submit a tender within four weeks of publication. The outcome will be announced in November. F2F ITTs will come out in September, again with a four week deadline. Outcomes will be announced in January 2013.

The tendering process for F2F contracts will be based on lots – every bidder that meets a quality threshold will be offered a contract/New Matter Start (NMS). The threshold will include holding Specialist Quality Mark or Lexcel and having a qualified superviser with 1:4 supervisor - caseworker ratio.

The process for allocating NMS to successful bidders is not clear. LSC say that most applicants will be awarded the volume of work they bid for, but that applicants bidding in the largest lot will only be guaranteed a minimum volume of work. LSC has not said whether they will stick to the current procurement areas (PA). If they do, the cuts to scope and eligibility mean there will not be much work to go round in each PA.

Taking the example of housing to illustrate: LSC has said £21m will be available for this work. This equates to £156,700 per PA, 110,000 NMS in total and 825 NMS per PA on average (not allowing for any exceptional cases and using current fixed fees). So you may well be bidding for a share of not much work at all and this will give rise to questions of sustainability. LSC has not said whether consortia bids will be permitted.

The tendering process for telephone services will ‘use award criteria and price competition’ with applicants bidding on the basis of hourly rates. Experience in Criminal police station contracts is that such a process could lead to the price being very low or zero. Bidders offer to run the service for nothing with the aim of generating certificated legal aid work from the calls.