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overpayment. Thoughts?
Im currently dealing with an overpayment and wanting thoughts on either recoverability or civil penalty.
Client lone parent receiving income support several years ago as lone parent
claims carers 7 years ago, and continues to receive income support
Cared for person died , client contacts Carers allowance immediately and according to client they would sort everything out.
Letter dated one week after passing from carers confirms she told them immediately.
She has continued to get income support for the last 2 years at £45 a week (well below her £73 applicable) and has been living on that and her child benefits.
Income support now want the lot back due to failure to disclose, and have hit her with civil penalty. Bit harsh considering shes been living on such a low income. Same goes for civil penalty.
Client thought she still had entitlement as a lone parent, and thought everything was ok as carers apparently told her they would sort everything. Youngest child too old to qualify for IS so i cant do revision here.
I know that technically she should have told income support, but in her mind Carers would sort everything.
Anyone have any experience of success with this kind of overpayment appeal. Technically DWP are probably right, but is there any leeway here? Offsets can be considered with Tax credits, but not income support apparently
Thoughts
It sounds as if your client may have used the ‘Tell Us Once’ service when reporting the change of circumstances so in that case they would have been advised that other organisations/teams would have been informed….
I would suggest you make a formal complaint, see if they have a copy of the original call and ask for a transcript and also ask for a copy of the case notes made at the time of the call. The person who took the details from your client should have notified the other team (Income Support) involved and your client should have been advised accordingly to make an alternative claim to JSA or ESA at the appropriate time.
Hopefully there will be some relevant information identified on either case notes or telephone call transcript but definitely challenge the O/P decision and Civil Penalty, if your client has had any contact/interaction with local JCP staff since the change in circumstances that can also be helpful as the situation should have been identified much earlier.
“Letter dated one week after passing from carers confirms she told them immediately” = Provides evidence that there was notification of the COS
If I remember rightly though, the ‘tell us once’ service was only rolled out nationally less than seven years ago. I may be wrong on that though
Im currently dealing with an overpayment and wanting thoughts on either recoverability or civil penalty.
Client lone parent receiving income support several years ago as lone parent
claims carers 7 years ago, and continues to receive income support
Cared for person died , client contacts Carers allowance immediately and according to client they would sort everything out.
Letter dated one week after passing from carers confirms she told them immediately.
She has continued to get income support for the last 2 years at £45 a week (well below her £73 applicable) and has been living on that and her child benefits.
Income support now want the lot back due to failure to disclose, and have hit her with civil penalty. Bit harsh considering shes been living on such a low income. Same goes for civil penalty.
Client thought she still had entitlement as a lone parent, and thought everything was ok as carers apparently told her they would sort everything. Youngest child too old to qualify for IS so i cant do revision here.
I know that technically she should have told income support, but in her mind Carers would sort everything.
Anyone have any experience of success with this kind of overpayment appeal. Technically DWP are probably right, but is there any leeway here? Offsets can be considered with Tax credits, but not income support apparently
Thoughts
Sorry I thought you meant 2 years ..... I am not sure of the date either regarding national rollout of the Tell Us Once service :(
2014, though it was piloted before then.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/tell-us-once-bereavement-support-expanded-and-red-tape-cut
BUMP!
Clients mandatory reconsideration came back -ve today so we are off to appeal. Nothing to lose.
Im on dodgy ground regarding the legal side of things, as technically she should have
informed the relevant dept etc etc.
What bugs me is they are refusing to write off the £50 penalty and still say she has acted fraudulently
she saved the taxpayer £1500 a year by living on 30 quid a week below her applicable, so there was
obviously no machievellian plan to defraud the system. Either that or she is a rubbish criminal.
My plan was to get £50 removed, and then apply for DRO, as apparently you cant include
debts with a civil penalty attatched? is that right? Sorry, i dont have any experience of DRO and bankruptcy
I personally think the civil penalty is a disgrace, and want to know if that issue could be treated separately
or would it be part of the appeal. Can i appeal the £50 separately?
Thanks in advance
A £50 civil penalty is applied to punish negligence or carelessness, not dishonesty, and does not necessarily mean there is any suggestion of fraud. An appeal would have to be based on the DWP definition of negligence, and reasonable excuse, etc.
Much larger “administrative” penalties (are they still called that?) can be applied as an alternative to fraud prosecution, where there are grounds to do so. Those debts would presumably not be discharged in insolvency.
For the depressing line of caselaw on notifying the right department, you could start looking at the cases linked here:
http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/8214/
A quick thought - I think the caselaw goes on about how a claimant cannot just expect one department to tell another. I think there is a world of difference if that department actually did tell her that it would share the information with the other dept. It may be hard to prove, I suppose no documents exist any longer and there won’t be an extant recording of any conversation,. but…?
May be worth exploring a SAR with client i.e. DWP request for personal information form for the period concerned.
I’m guessing she had WFI’s as a carer if IS CP involved and possibly seeing a Lone Parent Advisor, i know its a long leap of etc etc but if paperwork survived it is but you never know what unlikely stuff turns up in the notes, including if CA had told IS?