We have had an intregrated telephone claims system here for a while, eg call job seekers allowance claim line and they also do Housing Benefit and council tax benefit claim etc, excellent in theory at least.

Got a client who has HB overpayment on grounds that did not tell them she was receiving working tax credit. Evidence supplied for this is print out of telephone conversation questionaire done when client called to try to claim income support in 2007, which was sent to client and unfortunatley she has signed and returned. I note on this print out that the question of is she claiming working tax credits is not asked, rather the form asks if Working Families tax credits credit is being claimed. Wasn't this the benefit that preceeded working tax credits, which was long gone by 2007, or is this just another name for working tax credits. Wondering if Income Support were using an out of date form here. Yes still got a problem of the catch all question, do you receive any other income, which says no, and I haven't even asked for a recording of the telephone interview yet, which may reveal that the words used were working tax credits, so need all the amunition I get, so woudl be useful if this was an out of date form. Client did not receive income support by the way as was working, which is stated on the form, but did get HB.

Naughty me, I assumed that the Local Authority Input Document form had been signed and returned by the client as it states on the first page that the document has been signed and completed. On further examination there are actually no signitures at all, either from the client or BA assessor. I should have known better really. And this is their prove that client did not tell them about WTC. Makes you wonder.

I think you should ask for a recording of the conversation because its almost certain that the Tribunal will ask for it.

Its possible that the recording cannot be found (its happened recently in one of my tax credits cases), and so you can argue that this is evidence that the DWP are not keeping proper records and so more weight should be given to your clients evidence