My colleague has seen a client whose father/husband ( not sure which as only had quick chat with colleague) died on 9 Feb 05 of a 'notifiable disease'. The Pension Service were informed of his death immediately but to date have continued to pay his SRP into bank account. On querying this the family have been told that until the inquest they must continue payment. The deceased has been buried already. I can see an obvious overpayment occurring as we speak, is this normal, has anyone else had similar experience?

it isn't normal, and i've never heard anything like it. it's bonkers!

What's a notifiable disease?

part of a bureaucratic procedure. : )

see link below.

nothing which makes the fact of death uncertain! i'm not sure, but it's likely that inquests are required. (i'm digging back into my industrial death benefit days, when the coroner had to be notified of any death when pneumoconiosis was involved.)

an inquest can cause a delay in the issue of a death certificate, but the BD8 (Certificate of Registration of Death) can normally be issued, and the full certificate of death is not required by the DWP anyway. in any event, they can stop payments on a non-verified report of date of death, which is obvioussly the right thing to do when they have been told a claimant has died, and they have no reason to doubt it.

incidently, it can make a big difference if there is a widow, if they are DELAYING for the inquest. social security law has no interest in the cause of death (since IIDeath Benefit) was abolished, only the fact and date of death. conventionally, respect for the dead and compassion for the bereaved always trumped bureaucratic dogmatic rigidity, and our public services ( i know, i said i would stop it...)should be capable of sensitive and pragmatic action when called for. it is always called for around the area of bereavements, and there is no excuse for any idiotic pretending the person is not dead until a death certificate is issued!!!! they are willfully paying out public money which should not be paid, AND THEIR STUPIDITY WILL INEVITABLY CAUSE DISTRESS TO THE BEREAVED when they have the unnecessary stress of dealing with the demand for repayment, and are confronted with the unpleasant reality that they are dealing with a system that has humanity costed and scripted out of it.


http://www.hpa.org.uk/infections/topics_az/noids/noidlist.htm

jj

Thank you jj.

Going back to the original query regarding an overpayment. Surely this is occuring due to "official error" because they have been informed that the person has died, so it will not be recoverable.

it is 100% official error, and there can't be any sec 71 recovery. DWP may think they are covered for recovery by the provisions for automated direct transfers, but i don't believe it does cover overpayments caused by officials making a conscious decision to pay money into a dead person's account.

generally speaking, the recoverability in these circumstances is less of an issue than the DISTRESS caused by the mistake. grieving relatives don't want to profit in this way. what they want is officials who know what their job is, and who get on and do it efficiently and unobtrusively. they don't want to have to book appointments at CAB or advice agencies, fill in forms, go through the whole rigmarole, all to get payments to a deceased person stopped, and they especially don't want to have insane conversations with cock-sure script monkees which leave them doubting their own sanity.

the obvious question about the Pensions Srvice's mythical 'monitoring for quality' is of course, whether any standards above say, quality control for biscuit production are applied at all.