UC rapid reclaim and relevant 3 month period for LCWWRA

Client is single and lives alone in tempAcc. Health conditions, including cancer (I think without treatment), means no prospect of work. Claimed UC in September. Continuous fit notes submitted.
Original claim closed from October due to excess earnings of £800 - i.e. would not have been closed if client had already been assessed to have LCW. Advance payment made, no regular payments.
The earnings where incorrectly reported, and I’ve submitted an MR - pending investigation by HMRC.
I had asked for WCA, but no luck.

Rapid reclaim successfully. Can I ask that the relevant 3 month period be counted from the original claim, on the basis that it would not have been closed if he had LCW? (should he already have been classed as LCW, on account of the fit notes?)
(I don’t know if the client is alleged to have worked more than 16h/week in the relevant period. PIP claim is underway.)

Also: DWP is still refusing to send for WCA, am I right in thinking that I can just submit a UC50 to CHDA, and expect it to be actioned?

I think this may be a case where reg. 28(3) and (4) of the UC Regs 2013 apply?

Reg 28(3)(b) works in a case where a previous award of UC has ended before the 3 month period has expired and operates to mean the waiting period for LCWRA element expires on the day the 3 months would have ended in relation to the previous award.

Reg 28(3) applies where the conditions in para (4) are met- one of those is that in the six months prior to the new award commencing the previous award had stopped due to the claimant income being too high.

That sounds exactly like your case as far as I can see- why are the DWP refusing to refer for a medical?

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Sorry- on your second point about direct self referral to CHDA- that won’t work I think. See reg. 41 which sets out when the DWP may carry out an assessment to determine LCWRA- if they are refusing to do this then it may be something you could threaten JR for.

Martin

Thanks. Long day…I stopped reading one page too soon.

In September, when I asked for WCA in the first claim they said would do so after further fit notes were submitted (client was getting them for 2 week intervals). Then nothing happened, and I was logging in with the client in November to chase it and found the claim closed notice instead.

Made another note for WCA in the reclaim journal, which was ignored. Fit notes are now running 2 months at a time. MR request was accepted via the reclaim journal, so I know they check it and respond (selectively). I’m just posting another fit note which runs until March.

I seemed to recall someone made a post a while back about taking the initiative with a UC50. Maybe as a thought to circumvent the legislation…nudging DWP in the right direction? 

Helping the client with a PIP2 next week, good opportunity to listen to Vivaldi for a while I suppose.

See also this thread https://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/15383/

Va1der - 15 January 2020 04:33 PM

I seemed to recall someone made a post a while back about taking the initiative with a UC50. Maybe as a thought to circumvent the legislation…nudging DWP in the right direction? 

I’ve been helping a friend with a UC claim - had to reduce her hours at work due to ill-health - will be entitled to UC if she gets work allowance but no entitlement till then. Started claim and requested UC50 straight away because needed assessment to properly assess entitlement. None forthcoming despite reminders although claim has been kept open. 2 months into claim I printed off UC50 and got my friend to book appointment to take it in - they refused to accept it. Put a note in journal quoting guidance that UC50 should be submitted by day 29 and insisting they accept or to take journal entry as formal complaint for not sending one. Two days later UC50 arrived in the post with address for it to be sent to. So with a bit of pushing it did nudge them in the right direction eventually!

Light at the end of the tunnel…

Threatened JR (not pre-action letter, just message in the journal) for not sending for WCA - DWP responded in UC journal in 6 days, UCD35 issued, and even indicated relevant period to be counted from previous claim.