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award letters when in receipt of is for a child
this relates to an overpayment appeal of the disability premium for a child. client stayed on is rather than move to ctc.
when child reached 16 they were told no entitlement to pip and this wasnt challenged. disability premium continued to be paid so overpayment generated.
client states they told them dla was stopping and no pip entitlement so official error rather than failure to disclose.
what im wondering is what an award letter will show when a client gets is for their children and the child has a disability. is the child’s dla usually recorded as income on the award letter in the way it is for an adult (and then disregarded obviously)?
they havent included copies of the award letters in the papers but my thinking is this can go either way. if the award letters continued to show the child as having dla then surely this would have raised a red flag to the client? if, however, the child dla came off when it had been on previous award letters then that would support the clients assumption their notified change had been acted on and their money was correct.
unfortunately we dont have any copies of is letters with a disabled child as there are so few now and the client doesnt have old copies of hers.
anyone know/remember what is award letters showed in these circs?
If the premium for the child remained in payment, it would have shown on the entitlement notice that DLA was in payment (or that there was an entitlement) for the child. The entitlement notice is (or let’s say, should be) a direct reflection of the information held on the DWP’s computer system. If the IS processing department had ended the DLA on their system the premium for the child would have disappeared.
I have seen an IS decision letter from 2012, where the child is still within the applicable amount - defined as “because you have children with special needs” in the app amount calculation. But, in the income field, it also shows the DLA component for the child as £0.00 (and remarks “£19.55 is not counted”).
Probably won’t help your client, I’m afraid. :-(
Good luck!
thanks for the responses.
your right it certainly wont if it shows DLA for the child…..but if it didnt….
the fact the DWP havent included it makes me suspicious as it would be very good evidence for them but then i may be over estimating their abilities.
Don’t know whether this will help but the DLA Unit used to send pastel coloured cards to the Income Support office which was dealing with the parent’s IS claim to inform them of changes in payment of DLA for a child. The cards were occasionally ignored by the IS processors because they didn’t understand the importance and the effect that the child’s DLA stopping would have had on the parent’s IS award. At some stage the cards were superseded by an electronic prompt known as a WAR (Work Availability Report) which served the same function as the cards and again may have been overlooked by the processing teams due to not understanding the relevance of the information or just sheer pressure of work. Somebody would have to look at the WAR and physically amend the parent’s IS claim. A full record print (FRP) of the IS award under a Subject Access Request might show that IS had been informed of the ending of the DLA award. Alternatively or additionally an FRP of the child’s DLA award might show that a communication was sent to the office dealing with the parent’s IS claim. Not sure whether this gets your client off the hook but might have legs.
Don’t know whether this will help but the DLA Unit used to send pastel coloured cards to the Income Support office which was dealing with the parent’s IS claim to inform them of changes in payment of DLA for a child. The cards were occasionally ignored by the IS processors because they didn’t understand the importance and the effect that the child’s DLA stopping would have had on the parent’s IS award. At some stage the cards were superseded by an electronic prompt known as a WAR (Work Availability Report) which served the same function as the cards and again may have been overlooked by the processing teams due to not understanding the relevance of the information or just sheer pressure of work. Somebody would have to look at the WAR and physically amend the parent’s IS claim. A full record print (FRP) of the IS award under a Subject Access Request might show that IS had been informed of the ending of the DLA award. Alternatively or additionally an FRP of the child’s DLA award might show that a communication was sent to the office dealing with the parent’s IS claim. Not sure whether this gets your client off the hook but might have legs.
cheers for that but would likely still be caught out by her failure to notify the paying office unfortunately.