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Date of claim under Reg 10
Reg10 (1) (b) of the UC C&P regs says that the date of the claim can be the date that the claimant notified DWP of their intention to make the claim provided that the actual claim is made electronically by DWP themselves or by ‘a person providing services to the Secretary of State which is provided for the purpose of enabling that person to make a claim’.
That omits the part of the regulation which specifies that the assistance has to take place at a particular location. For r10(1)(b) to apply, the assistance must be “at home or at an appropriate office”. Reg 2 then supplies the definition of “appropriate office” as being a place which, amongst other things, has a postal address specified by the Secretary of State “to, or at which, any claim, notice, document, evidence or other information may be sent, delivered or received for the purposes of these Regulations”. I suspect this may be a stumbling block for a lot of Help to Claim services, though I have no idea if DWP think on the same lines.
I asked previously here about whether this requirement of r10 was ever tested under Assisted Digital Support on local authority premises, no one has given a specific example either way.
(edit: I should add, no one that I have raised this “appropriate office” issue with seems to agree with me that it’s a problem, so I may be missing something obvious!)
[ Edited: 8 May 2019 at 04:48 pm by Jon (CANY) ]At training courses in recent months, participants have been reporting staff DWP responses to 10(1)(b) ranging from “we have been on a DWP training course and 10(1)(b) does not apply to UC claims” (!), or “you are only paid from the date a UC claim is fully completed, so 10(1)(b) is irrelevant” (!) or “Help to Claim is specifically excluded from 10(1)(b)” etc. These seem to be rather heady, impulsive responses.
Further to Jon’s points, the wording of 10(1)(b) is a bit problematic. As pointed out, location is specified either ‘at home’ (this first heading, if you like) or at an ‘appropriate office’ (the second heading), but there is no location reference for the third heading of potential help (from ‘a person providing services…’ etc). Surely the absence of a specified location does not mean that the location of the third heading has to be at ‘home’ or at ‘an appropriate office’. I do not read the third heading as being bound into the locations of the first two.
Amber may help resolve the policy intention when she replies to Daphne’s letter, but I can imagine a number of FtT judges who would be very easily see CA office based assistance under ‘Help to Claim’ coming squarely under the terms and intention of 10(1)(b). How could it possibly be fair or reasonable to be allowed an earlier start date only if the CA office you approach for help are based in a Jobcentre?
Its a bit like only fully protecting SDP entitled claimants if they are shielded from natural migration. It is the sort of thing people go to court about.
I do not read the third heading as being bound into the locations of the first two.
I disagree. If you would be right, there would have to be an extra “from” before “a person providing services”.
Hi Charles,
I could of course be wrong, but if I am that would mean that the authors of 10(1)(b) envisaged/only wanted to assist those helped by third party services specifically within an appointed office/jobcentre. For me, that does not sit right at all. I do hope that Amber and/or tribunal judges might see intention in another way.
If my view is correct, CA will be far less vulnerable to complaints about delays in Help to Claim assistance costing claimants money. Guaranteed CA capacity for same day assistance to help with all new claims is unlikely in many cases. That was of course always so, but now CA is being directly funded for the gig.
A story of interest:
https://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/17627029.universal-credit-another-change-that-will-mean-people-lose-cash-warns-glasgow-msp/
(.. though it doesn’t go into detail about how many claimants actually benefited from reg 10 previously.)
See below for guidance from Angela Toal, CPAG Scotland (received yesterday). My reading of this is that there is likely more chance for Reg 10 being applied where the HtC help is delivered at JC+ (i.e. through co-location), unless DWP agrees to recognise CABs as “appropriate offices”.
Hello Carolyn
Thanks for your email about the steps you have taken to try to get maximum backdating for your clients.
We briefly discussed on the training the fact that where someone provides services to DWP to help people claim, the date of claim could be the date they first asked for help.
To go into this in more detail (there wasn’t a lot of time for detail on the training!), the rules (reg 10 of the Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment, Jobseeker’s Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance Claims and Payments Regulations 2013) say:
10.—(1) Where a claim for universal credit is made, the date on which the claim is made is—
(a) subject to sub-paragraph (b), in the case of a claim made by means of an electronic communication in accordance with regulation 8(1), the date on which the claim is received at an appropriate office;
(b) in the case of a claim made by means of an electronic communication in accordance with regulation 8(1), where the claimant receives assistance at home or at an appropriate office from the Secretary of State, or a person providing services to the Secretary of State, which is provided for the purpose of enabling that person to make a claim, the date of first notification of a need for such assistance;
(c) subject to sub-paragraph (d), in the case of a claim made by telephone in accordance with regulation 8(2), the date on which that claim is properly completed in accordance with regulation 8(4); or
(d) where the Secretary of State is unable to accept a claim made by telephone in accordance with regulation 8(2) on the date of first notification of intention to make the claim, the date of first notification, provided a claim properly completed in accordance with regulation 8(4) is made within one month of that date,
or the first day in respect of which the claim is made if later than the above.
Para b is the relevant paragraph, and applies where someone gets assistance 1) at home or 2) in an appropriate office.
1)You could argue (through MR and appeal) that this applies if the claimant was helped to claim at home. You would have to argue that the bureau is ‘a person providing services to the Secretary of State’. If it applies then their date of claim should be the date they notify DWP that they need this help.
2)Appropriate office is defined in reg 2 as
“appropriate office” means—
(a) an office of the Department for Work and Pensions or any other place designated by the Secretary of State in relation to any case or class of case as a place to, or at which, any claim, notice, document, evidence or other information may be sent, delivered or received for the purposes of these Regulations and includes a postal address specified by the Secretary of State for that purpose; or
(b) in the case of a person who is authorised or required by these Regulations to use an electronic communication for any purpose, an address to which such communications may be sent in accordance with Schedule 2;
Therefore unless a CAB office is designated by DWP as an appropriate office, para b cannot apply if the help to claim was provided in the CAB office.
We would suggest that if this is an issue an individual bureau wants to pursue, they should take it up with CAS as a policy issue.
Otherwise the normal backdating rules would apply, where appropriate (also on p47 of CPAG’s 2019/20 handbook).
Angela
It could be possible to read the definition of appropriate office as including bureaux etc. The emphasis in (2) below is mine.
an office of the Department for Work and Pensions or any other place designated by the Secretary of State in relation to any case or class of case as a place to, or at which, any claim, notice, document, evidence or other information may be sent, delivered or received for the purposes of these Regulations and includes a postal address specified by the Secretary of State for that purpose;
The SoS has designated Help to Claim outlets as a place , at which, other information, may be delivered or received.
The postal address section I read as permitting that address to be a place not that every place needs a postal address.
If the DWP’s position is that CitA offices aren’t designated, then it should designate them. Otherwise, as other people have pointed out, claimants who need help would be better off making their claim via a jobcentre or other place that has been designated.
Thought this may be of use to readers of this forum until the current confusion about the CAB Help to Claim service is resolved one way or another.
There is no dispute that reg.10(1)(b) applies for home visits from DWP home visiting.
I tried to get UC to apply Reg 10 back in 2016 when I saw with my own eyes people walking into Hartlepool Jobcentre to claim UC and saying they needed help and being told all the computers were busy and to go to the Council who they had arrangement with to help people claim. I argued that Jobcentre had no idea whether people did in fact go to the council for help, and they should set up a recording system for the date the person had requested help to claim because there is a Reg that covers this!
I was ignored of course and never got a case which was strong enough to appeal!
Further to the press report I linked, a helpful colleague has also pointed me at:
http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/report.aspx?r=12081&i=109302&c=2172710
5. Bob Doris (Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn) (SNP):
To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the Department for Work and Pensions’ removal of the protected date of claim guarantees, which previously allowed councils and Citizens Advice Scotland to back-date benefits claims of their clients to the start of the application process rather than the final submission date. (S5O-03192)
I’m guessing this is about the reg 10 issue, though it’s a bit garbled if so.
edit: it seems I mis-spoke, this isn’t as garbled a statement of DWP’s position as I had thought.
[ Edited: 6 Jun 2019 at 03:06 pm by Jon (CANY) ]The definition of appropriate office is all about where things can be validly sent, it makes little sense as a location where things can be done. It seems to me that the definition wasn’t intended to apply to this regulation. I’m not sure whether it’s possible to sever it like but it’s pretty non-sensical if one doesn’t.
CPAG have tweeted that they’re looking for cases -
Make sure claimants who don’t immediately receive Help to Claim appointment request assistance directly from DWP straight away. Are your clients losing out because they had to wait for CAB appointment? Tell us so we can take action ...
I was giving evidence to the Scottish Parliament social security committee today and this issue came up.
Bob dorris msp chairs the committee.
Whilst it’s main remit is devolution of benefits there seemed to be a lot of interest in this issue so hopefully some pressure can be applied to ease the dwp definition of application of this reg at their end.
I’m giving evidence to the Welsh Assembly committee on devolution of benefits in a couple of weeks. I might try to sneak the issue in.