Have a number of elderly tenants who have complained of changes to their housing penefit payment intervals. Reason is that LA has decided (apparently for purely administrative reasons) to change payment frequency from 2 weeks advance + 2 weeks arrears to payments of 4 weeks arrears.

All these tenants have unbroken HB claims earlier than October 1996 - so I believed that they were protected from current reg (72 of HB state pension credit regs). The problem is that this reg is in part 11 and as far as I can see is not appealable.

Questions therefore:
1. Is the protected right to payment interval appealable or not? (Doesn't seem much point in having protection if you cannot appeal).
2. If so what is the regulation that can be appealed?

The answers are;
1) "Yes"
2) Schedule 3 of The HB and CTB (Consequential Provisions) Regulations 2006. I think it is para 7 (2) but I must admit to getting a bit lost in those particular regulations.

Jeff

Is it worth pointing out to the authority that....er.....they simply cannot do this? It's a straightforward error of law, I would have thought. I wonder if the person who has made this change has either forgotten or never knew about the pre-Oct 96 protection.

Hmmm. I've just been checking the schedule to the DARs and, unless I've overlooked something, decisions relating to HBRs 91 & 92** are excluded from the right of appeal.

** As amended by the regs cited by Jeff


If it is correct that there is no right of appeal, the only way forward (in the legal sense) will be by way of JR.

However, in the meantime, I think a letter of complaint to the Benefits section is thoroughly justified. If the complaint procedure fails, next stop Ombudsman. Thereafter, JR.

Sadly, I suspect Kevin is correct about the rights of appeal.

I was thinking that the claimant would have the right of appeal against the decision that 7(2) of the CP regs did not apply to them, but on reflection I think Kevin is right and this would be treated as an appeal against a decision under Reg 92 and therefore OOJ.

Jeff

Thanks for the replies.

Kevin and Jeff have confirmed what I suspected. However I have this nagging feeling that there is a reg I have not found because i cannot follow how the regs are constructed.

Looking at the general note in CPAG lagislation page 1122, it talks of a "saving provision" that appears to mean that the protected cases are excluded from reg 92 (and I suppose - its non-appealability) and mentions the former reg 11.

So is there a current right of appeal under reg 11?

If not -what does it mean?

This being a Friday, my brain is starting to hurt!!!

It is complex.

When the rules changed in 1996, protection was originally extended to tenants by Reg 11 of the HB amendment regs 1996. When these regs were deleted in 2006, the same provision was reapplied in the consequential provisions regs.

Both the 1996 amendment regs and the 2006 consequential provisions regs work in the same way. In effect they say that in cases where the protection applies, then regs 91 & 92 should be read as

A payment of a rent allowance in accordance with paragraph (1) shall be made insofar as it is practicable to do so, 2 weeks before the end of the period in respect of which it is made unless the liability to pay rent of the person entitled is in respect of a past period, in which case payment of the rent allowance may be made at the end of that period.";