overpayment of CA due to CBESA. 

I have a client who satisfied the contribution condition for ESA, however as she was in WRAG it flipped to
income related after 365 days.

She then claimed CA , and got extra IRESA due to carers premium.

At the time we had an appeal to put client in the support group running, and we successfully did so via tribunal.

Her contribution based ESA resumed at the £109.30 a week rate

At that point her CA should have stopped, as the 2 overlap, but she has been getting both CA of £62 a week and CBESA of £109 at the same time.

She has been overpaid, but the million dollar question is : do you think its recoverable?

Was Client dutifully bound to know about how benefits overlap, and therefore inform carers that her ESA had been reinstated, or was it the duty of Jobcentre Plus to inform Carers?

Any thoughts would be appreciated

Off the top of my head, it seems to me that client could not have known there had been a change of circumstances. She received ESA throughout and I can’t see that she could possibly be expected to know the difference between CB and IR ESA (and how the overlapping benefit rules would work). After all, ESA is one benefit. So I’d be arguing offficial error.

Hi - I guess you need to see if the claimant had a specific duty to tell CA about CB-ESA being awarded again - ie had she been clearly informed that should do that - if not, I think you could argue that had not breached general duty to disclose as couldn’t reasonably have been expected to know that change would affect payability of CA - p1214 of CPAG handbook sets it out.

Also, just thinking, is there a reason why she couldn’t get carer’s premium of IR-ESA on top of the CB-ESA? I see you can still get premium if CA not paid due to overlapping ben rules (p232 CPAG handbook) - am I missing something here?

You’re right Ros - she would be entitled to carer premium but total ESA would be 143.90 so still overpayment as has been receiving 171.40 - but definitely worth challenging amount of overpayment as well as recoverability

Daphne - 08 July 2016 04:26 PM

You’re right Ros - she would be entitled to carer premium but total ESA would be 143.90 so still overpayment as has been receiving 171.40 - but definitely worth challenging amount of overpayment as well as recoverability

Hi all - the total IRESA applicable amount for this client should be as follows:

£73.10 + SG £36.20 + CP £34.60 + EDP £15.75 = £159.65

ah yes - forgot edp - sorry - but point remains - worth challenging amount of overpayment as well as recoverability