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Backdating missing premiums
Hi all
My client has various physical/mental health problems and has been on IB for several years, however in Feb 10 she was hospitalised for 3 months due to a particularly nasty accident (in which she broke her spine) Client finally claimed DLA, with the help of a support worker and was awarded HR care & HR moblity in Dec 10, backdated to June 10 (when she came out of hospital)
To cut along story short she hasn’t been getting any of the IS premiums she’s entitled to.
Chester BDC say she will have to make a fresh claim for IS and while they accept she should have been getting premiums since June 10 based on her DLA award, they will only backdate IS to Dec10. Despite my arguing otherwise they won’t budge and are now giving me the run around, ie can’t speak to you without the client present, 3 faxed FOA’s going ‘missing’ (its a large department don’t you know!) and the old favourite ‘can I take your number and someone will call you back’
Should they backdate to June?
Thanks
Sueky
She needs to claim off the support workers insurance.
Was she on Income Support when she claimed DLA. If not when did she first claim it?
Due to the level of medication (regular morphine patches, amongst others) client is completely oblivious to what benefits she is in receipt of now or has claimed in the past and regularly contradicts herself.
Managed to get hold of the disability support worker who helped with the DLA claim, again she only has limited information but says she believes that client was previously (before hospital) receiving DLA LR care & LR mob. DLA stopped whilst client was in hospital for 3 months and when she came out she never reclaimed it. Client was referred to her in Oct 10 and she helped “put in a claim for DLA”. DLA was increased to HR care & HR mob in Dec 10 and backdated to June10.
She also says that prior to being in hospital someone was claiming CA for client and she thinks client was receiving some sort of IS top up but this was suspended when client went into hospital? But if she’s correct and CA was being paid to someone then surely client would have to had been in receipt of MR care (at least) and qualify for IS premiums
If a person is on IS and is subsequently awarded a qualifying benefit or an increase in a qualifying benefit then if IS then falls to be increased because of that then the increase takes effect from the date of the award of the qualifying benefit, no matter when the DWP are notified of the award (regs 6(2)(e) and 7(7) of the D&A Regs 1999).
If the person was not on IS at the time of the award of the qualifying benefit or not claimed IS around the same time as a claim for a qualifying benefit was made then the IS can only be backdated up to a maximum of 3 months but only if a ground can be made out under reg 19 of the Claims and Payments Regs 19897 unless any of the other relevant provisions of reg 6 C&P Regs can be satisfied
She needs to claim off the support workers insurance.
Why?
My thoughts exactly. Why?
Assuming she was claiming Incapacity Benefit then Income Support may not have been payable - unless her Incapacity was payable at a lower rate than the level of Income Suppor t with a disability premium, then there would have been nothing else to claim. This commonly happens with younger claimants because of the age additions taking Incapacity over and above Income Support levels.
If she had been on middle rate DLA care, then the Severe Disability Premium would only have been payable if she had no-one else iving in the same household (the exception being if they recieved MR or HR of DLA or AA or were registered blind). If someone was getting Carers Allowance for her then SDP wouldnt be payable anyway.
Now she is getting the Highest Rate Care, then she can get enhanced disability premium, and if the above conditions are met, the severe disability premium.
If she was only ever getting Incapacity Benefit, then three month backdating rules will apply.