Perhaps advisers should be telling their clients to run with the "Hain" defence, the next time they have an overpayment case caused by non-disclosure of capital. This basically states that any error was the result of an "administrative error" and thus, the person concerned should be exonerated from any blame and no further action taken.

More here

Now that's what I call a proper Christmas cracker!

It would be funny if the gentleman concerned was not the Minister responsible for the DWP....

If one of our clients fails to notify a change in circumstances as required by law, however small, their already meagre income is adjusted, curtailed or stopped accordingly. Even worse, they may well be invited to meet new friends in the form of fraud officers.

It would appear that, in Whitehall, any such failure to comply with the law is perfectly OK if you can show that it was solely due to a administrative error, probably by your "staff", who were unsure of what the law said and didn't understand the big words anyway....

Looks like ex-secretaries of State for Work and Pensions are lending their names to quite a few new tribunal arguments.

We now have the Johnson defence: "I told them but they did not act on it".

The now well-established, Harman defence: "I didn't declare it because I didn't know where it came from".

The Blunkett defence: "I didn't think that shares counted as capital".

The Darling defence for notional capital cases: "I got rid of the capital to help a struggling bank".

The Smith defence against JSA sanctions for voluntary leaving: "I wanted to spend more time with my family".

And finally, the PM no less, has widened the Hain defence to include cases where the the claimant has demonstrated "an incompetence" with handling money.

I shouldn't push it too far Neil; they may decide that incompetence is a defense for the department as well.

Oh, silly me, it already is, of course.

the Johnson defence is official error by the Electoral Commission, right? er...

Official error by the electorate, more like!

lol!