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CB application for Polish nationals

Ed Pybus
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Welfare rights worker for disabled children and families - CPAG in Scotland

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Hiya,

We have a Polish couple who have made an application for child benefit. They have been sent a form that asks details about the client expenditure, make a model of motor vehicle etc. Anyone come across this and why are CBO asking?

EDIT: It’s similar to http://revenuebenefits.org.uk/pdf/BC_International_1.pdf
but requires detailed info re: expenditure and make and model of the claimants vehicle - why would CBO need that to assess someones RTR?

[ Edited: 24 May 2016 at 03:44 pm by Ed Pybus ]
Ruth Knox
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Vauxhall Law Centre

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I have just been trying to complete the B and C International 1 for Child Benefit for a Romanian couple. I can’t see any purpose for page 21 - why do they need to know their household budget?  (I can see that they might want an earnings figure to meet the “genuine and effective” test, but this is much more than that).  Ruth

HB Anorak
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Benefits consultant/trainer - hbanorak.co.uk, East London

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I suppose they are trying to capture enough evidence to establish any R2R all in one hit.  As Child Benefit is not means tested, self-sufficiency is one of the routes to entitlement so presumably that is why the questions are there: they are checking whether the claimant has sufficient resources to support himself/herself.  Saves them having to come back with a supplementary request if none of the more usual R2Rs is satisfied.  Difficult to strike the right balance between subjecting the claimant to excessive inconvenience on the one hand and avoiding delay through serial info requests on the other.  Ideally you would want a form designed to stream out superfluous questions once you have said enough.

Ruth Knox
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Vauxhall Law Centre

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Yes, that’s something I hadn’t thought of,  but I suppose a simple question on whether they are self-sufficient plus bank statements could do this, or (as you said) something that screens out these questions once another R2R is established. 
Ruth