Old Overpayments - Unknown Balance/Hardship/Basis

A client has been paying back overpayments of Incapacity Benefit and JSA dating back from early 90s totalling roughly £20k.  He is currently very ill.

I recently made a SAR request on his behalf to find out what the overpayments related to.  It seems he had a small part time job and the employer handed details of hours worked as part of the investigation.  I want to help him but don’t know which angle to go for. 

Firstly, there is nothing from the SAR response detailing his payments made so far or his current outstanding balance.  A friend recently rung on his behalf about this and was told that details are not available since migration to a new computer system.  This seems very strange.

Secondly, the client is very ill and I’m wondering whether to try getting his outstanding balance waived on the basis that he won’t be here for much longer and the stress and anxiety of coping with what seems like an endless payment arrangement (somewhat related to the above point) is causing him undue hardship.

Lastly, I am not sure why the overpayments were found as although he did work, it was not every month and the maximum he ever worked was 80 hours in a month.  He told me he always informed the Jobcentre about any hours above 16 per week.  I have started a separate thread about Incapacity Benefit and Permitted work here as I am not sure what the regulations were at the time:
http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/7645/

This is all from a long time ago and he’s just been paying out of his benefits (DLA and State Pension) since.

If anybody has any thoughts, any help would be much appreciated..

You’re right that it was 8th April 2002—but the bad news is that the regime prior to that date,  ‘therapeutic work’ was MORE rather less restrictive than the permitted work rules.

This extract from an RNIB factsheet (on here at http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/pdfs/rnibicbfactsheet.doc) written in 2001 or early 2002 explains it pretty clearly, for more details get hold of a CPAG hanbook from 2001-2 or earlier—We probably have one in Shoreham, if you can’t find one in Lewes to reply on here and I’ll have a look. See if your client can fit himself into these criteria.

I’m a bit confused by the reference to JSA—in the early 90’s he would have been receiving unemployment benefit

Activities you can do while claiming Incapacity for Work Benefits

If you are claiming IB or Income Support on the grounds of incapacity for work, you cannot normally do any paid work. Therapeutic work is an exception to this rule. You can also do voluntary work.

Therapeutic work includes:

• Work that is undertaken on the advice of a doctor and expected to “improve” or “to prevent or delay deterioration in the disease or bodily or mental disablement” that causes your incapacity for work.  This work must be less than 16 hours per week. 

• Work done in a sheltered workshop for people with disabilities

• Work that is done as part of a treatment programme under medical supervision, either in or out of hospital.

You must always get the Benefit Agency’s agreement before starting any therapeutic work.  You can earn no more than £60.50 per week.  If you are also getting Income Support, Housing Benefit or Council Tax Benefit you will only be able to earn up to £20 per week before those benefits are reduced.

We have 1999/2000 and 2001/2—if you can’t find them in Lewes I’m in the office on Friday and can either scan and email or arrange pick up in Brighton over the weekend if that suits.

@paulmoorhouse
Really sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you - I thought I’d set up the notifications to let me know if there were any replies!  Thank you so much for trying to help me.  I have gone for trying to get more information from the debt management centre first.  I am mostly concerned that the client hasn’t been able to obtain an outstanding balance yet.  But thank you for the other information you provided about the situation with therapeutic work - it has pointed me in the right direction and it doesn’t look good for him from that angle unfortunately.  Thanks again.

No problem—shout if you need the books later Paul (paul(dot)moorhouse(at)westsussexcab(dot)org(dot)uk)

@paulmoorhouse - thanks

I was thinking whether there may be some maladministration issue here I can bring up for not having statements/balance?