Budgeting advances when unable to clear a previous advance

Has anyone had experience of applying for a UC budgeting advance after a previous one has been entered into a DRO/bankruptcy and so the first loan can not be recovered?

The relevant reg says there would be a barrier if a loan “remains to be recovered”, which I would argue is not necessarily the same as “has not been paid”.

However, the explanatory memo at 7.15 interprets this as “claimants will need to have repaid an outstanding Budgeting Advance before a further Budgeting Advance is awarded”.
gov.uk also tells the public “you must have ... paid off any previous Budgeting Advances”.

Is there any DWP guidance on this? It would seem harsh for someone who has gone insolvent to be forever barred access to further budgeting advances.

edit:

There is mention in this scrutiny committee document of the Draft Social Security (Payments on Account of Benefit) Regulations 2013 (my bolding):

The Advance will be for a minimum of £100 and, to prevent long-term debt, claimants will need to have repaid an outstanding Budgeting Advance before a further Budgeting Advance is awarded. Decision Makers’ guidance will set out a maximum recovery period of 12 months to minimise the length of time the claimant will be in debt.

So the intention of a limit on repeat borrowing is apparently to prevent debt - as opposed to saving the public purse, say, or to encourage financially responsible behaviour. It therefore seems to me that a debt that is irrecoverable through insolvency should be treated the same as one that has been paid. I also don’t think that’s inconsistent with the letter of the law, but I don’t know how it’s being applied in practice.

Jon

I have not helped anyone in the situation you describe, but as far as available guidance goes there is very little available. A FOI request answered back in 2017 asking for a copy of the guidance directed the requestor to the UC full service guidance deposited in HOC. The section in the deposited paper about budgeting advances is pretty scant on detail and probably does not tell you anything you don’t already know! It uses slightly different wording to the regs/explanaotry meorandum etc such as “must not have any repayment of a Budgeting Advance outstanding” Not sure if the link still works, bu here is the FOI and reply

“I am requesting a copy of the guidance issued to DWP decision makers
regarding the making and administration of universal credit budgeting
advances. Unlike the guidance for budgeting loans from the social fund which
is available as part of the publically accessible Decision Makers Guide, I can
find no publically available guidance on how and when universal credit
budgeting advances in the Advice for Decision Making collection on the
DWP’s website.”
DWP Response
In October 2016 we published the complete UC full service guidance in the
House of Commons library. This is available to the public via the following
link, deposit reference “DEP2016-0778”.
http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/businesspapers/commons/deposited-papers/?fd=2016-10-01&td=2016-11-
01&search_term=Department+for+Work+and+Pensions&itemId=119004#togg
le-778

If the above does not work hopefullly this link will, but don’t hold your breath as IT not really my thing. <http://data.parliament.uk/DepositedPapers/Files/DEP2019-0980/4._Advances_-_Budgeting_Advances_v5.0.pdf>

Thanks Mkfiftyeight.
As you say, as per the other guidance I’ve see, that deposited paper includes that ‘the new benefit unit is not eligible for a further Budgeting Advance until the first has been repaid in full’

However, someone at DWP has now helpfully provided me the following excerpt from internal guidance, which I would hope must specifically over-rule the general case:

Insolvency and Universal Credit Advances

The recovery of any Universal Credit Advances taken before the start of an insolvency order must be suspended until the end of the insolvency order. Those advances will then be written off at the end of the insolvency order.

A claimant can apply for any type of advance after the date their insolvency order began. This is recoverable in full as normal.

edit: that excerpt is from the Benefits overpayment recovery guide, so it’s provided just in the context of recovering loans, rather than outlining the factors weighing when DWP can grant them. I was probably wrong to read into it that the claimant in the final sentence can necessarily include someone who had a prior loan written off as in the preceding sentence. So, I think it’s still quite vague…