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Can a 16 year old receive DLA payments themselves?
Due to Covid etc, my sixteen and a half year old client is still on DLA and has been told he cannot make an application for PIP at present.
He is now estranged from and living separately from his parent who has been appointee because he was a child. They are no longer spending any money on him or passing any on to him. There are no issues of mental health or capability.
He has asked DLA to pay him directly. This has been refused - “it can only be paid to your appointee”
There IS someone who COULD be an alternative appointee. They have already been awarded CTC re him. But he would much prefer to have the money paid into his own account.
Is this possible?
Is there chapter and verse that I can quote to DWP?
Any work-arounds?
Note regulation 43(2)(d) of the Claims and Payments Regulations 1987. On an application made by the 16 year old in the circumstances you describe, and regulation 33 (persons unable to act) does not apply, the DWP should, possibly subject to further enquiries, move to revoke the appointeeship as soon as possible. Also note 43(7) which describes a child as someone under the age of 16.
Raise the matter with the Dispute Resolution Team, throwing in a financial abuse safeguarding issue in for good measure. If this gets nowhere then send a judicial review letter before action.
Thanks so much. Very helpful, and very quick.
Has anyone else got any ideas?
Are other ideas needed? I think Nevip has nailed it.
Also, he can surely claim PIP any time he likes? DWP might not have him down for conversion yet, but he can do a voluntary transfer on his own initiative can’t he? He would thereby seize control of his own claim.
Am I right in understanding that there is no question of PIP being paid to an appointee on the sole basis that the claimant is only 16? This whole debacle has had me questioning what I thought I knew!
Unfortunately, in the present environment, his PIP application and assessment could take months. In the meantime he would not be getting
either benefit.