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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Work capability issues and ESA  →  Thread

Permitted work

DDP
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The Terrence Higgins Trust

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Total Posts: 102

Joined: 7 September 2010

I just wanted to check with respect to permitted work higher limit:

I have a client who is in self-employment. He works only very occasionally but when he does work his income or hours usually exceed the current permitted work higher limit both for hours and income during a particular week. I understand this means he is not entitled to benefit for the particular week in question but does it also mean that his employment and support allowance would end. He has not informed the DWP of the work and will be facing a potential overpayment which could clearly be a significant sum.

Jon (CANY)
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Welfare benefits - Craven CAB, North Yorkshire

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Joined: 16 June 2010

There is a potential get-out, which is that the period of work might be treated as a ‘closed period supersession’, which does not require a new claim to have been made to resume entitlement after the period of work. E.g. see some of the references in this post: https://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/5980

We have a similar case at the moment, where ESA didn’t treat a one-off period of work a couple of months previously as a closed period, and just ended the award entirely thus creating an overpayment. I’m not sure why. Our client is better off on UC in any case, and I don’t know if an appeal will be made. I do think this is a difficult provision, in the sense that it can provide an incentive to be late in reporting changes of circs.

DDP
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The Terrence Higgins Trust

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Total Posts: 102

Joined: 7 September 2010

Thanks for the response.