Personal Injury Payments - disregarded

Good afternoon,

I was hoping for some advice on personal injury payments and what can be disregarded as capital and what is to be treated as capital on a UC claim.

On the 25th January 2024 client contact the DWP via her UC online journal to report that she had been paid compensation of £19062.60 following a claim of medical negligence which led to the loss of her child.  Her child was 22 months old.

The DWP has stated that the amount of £13437.60   received was in relation to medical neglect regarding the loss of their child. In this case, the amount therefore is not in relation to the appellant themselves, therefore cannot be classed as personal injury compensation.

Is this correct?

The DWP go on to state £5625.00 of this is compensation for a secondary victim claim, (this was paid to the client herself for the loss of her child) in order to be disregarded fully, it would have to meet regulation 75 of the UC regulation 2013.

The DWP has stated the in order to be disregarded the sum has to be either

Held in a trust or
Administered on behalf of that person by the courts
Only able to be disposed of by the direction of the courts

However, regulation 75 of the UC regulation 2013 also states

(6) If the sum is not held in trust or has not been used to purchase an annuity or otherwise disposed of, but has been paid to the person within the past 12 months, that sum is to be disregarded in the calculation of the person’s capital.

so we are arguing that the £5625.00 can be disregarded as she was only awarded this in January 2024 and therefore should be disregarded for 52 weeks.

The DWP has gone on to stated that as the sum was administered by NHS Resolution, that this then does not meet the regulation 75 disregard and this doesn’t apply.

Can you advise if this is correct?

Any help would be very much appreciated

Thank goodness you’re there to help - what an awful thing to stress about on top of everything else your client has suffered :(

Sounds like the DWP staff are misreading their own guidance on Capital disregards

Under the Disregard indefinitely section, the guidance requires PI compensation to be in a trust or administered by the Court.

You may want to direct them to read on down to “Capital disregarded for up to 12 months” (starting at page 8), the PI bit is on page 10.

I would press them on why a payment doesn’t count as PI compensation because it was administered by NHS Resolution. Reg 75 simply requires the compensation to be made in accordance with a court order or an agreement, and makes no provisions regarding which organisation paid the amount… Unless you mean something else by ‘administered’?

Thank you for your reply. I will certainly go back to them to query this part.

Thankyou