Single Mother on IS. Her 13year old son has died and she wishes to make a claim for a Funeral Payment(FP) from the SF. The father of the child works full-time and lives in area nearby.
I've checked CPAG handbook and it looks like that as the Father is an absent parent not on a qualifying benefit, the Mum will fail to qualify as the person responsible for a FP. CPAG goes onto say that the Mum may qualify under the 'close relative' rule.
After checking the DMG (39151) it would appear that that option is cut off from the Mother, namely, that the 'close relative' test cannot be considered under 39151 para 2.
Local DWP SFO unable to clarify. Anyone out there able to?

If the child lived with his mother then I cannot see how she is not the person responsible for the FP. It will of course depend on the nature of the contact the child had with his father.

That was my initial thought but the way I'm reading the regs and guidance it would seem that the mother will not get far enough to start considering nature of contact etc

Unfortunately, the test is a little more stringent. If (other than the responsible person) there is another immediately family member (parent, son or daughter) of the deceased and that immediate family member is not on a qualifying benefit then that immediate family member will have to have been estranged from the deceased (Reg 7(3) of the Social Fund Maternity and Funeral Expenses Regulations 1987).

Thus while it may have been more straight forward to show that the resident parent was in closer contact with the child than the absent parent, it may not have been the case that the absent parent and the child were estranged.

Regards
Paul

As far as I'm aware the absent parent could not stand the partner but was not estranged from the child.

Have you confirmed that father, although in f-t work, isn't on HB, CTB or qualifying Tax Credit?

I remember once assuming that another family member wasn't on a qualifying benefit and then discovering that she was...

Unfortunately Father not on any qualifying benefit