Income-related ESA and closed period supersession

Hello, I would appreciate thoughts here.

Cl is in receipt of irESA with the support component, EDP and SDP, HB and CTR, PIP SR DL and ER Mobility. She disclosed today that she has savings of £13k, left over from an inheritance of £23k two years ago. She has not notified ESA, HB/CTR of the inheritance. 

When she notifies ESA, they should deal with it as a closed period supersession so her entitlement to ir ESA should continue with tariff income deducted, and so entitlement to HB and CTR should continue. She will have overpayments of ESA and HB to deal with and CT liability.

I have a UC case very similar to this which has now been at appeal for three years (and counting), in which rather than carry out a closed period supersession, UC revised the awarding decision and ended the award and did not notify the client of this for several months, meaning that he missed out on several months of UC before he made a new claim.

My question is, is there any way to encourage ESA to deal with it by closed period supersession? And presumably also HB/CTR? She can challenge a failure to carry out a closed period supersession. But in the mean time, she may need to claim UC and start the WCA process again for income pending an appeal.

Am getting muddled! Many thanks in advance

If I were you I’d be digging through the DMG to find any guidance on closed period superesessions and telling them “DMG para… says you can do it that way” then crossing my fingers.

Even then, where JCP can suspend the ESA award and HB naturally goes with it while they figure out the overpayment your client may well be waving goodbye to any TP until they get the CPS sorted out.

I’ve never seen JCP do a CPS before; it’s always been a construct of the Tribunal so I wouldn’t be getting any hopes up that it’ll be a quick fix.

To save the digging, its DMG 04117.

That’s brilliant, thank both for your help.