I was asked for advice on a case yesterday by a colleague. Client was overpayed a substantial amount of Income Support after not declaring husband and his income. The decision to recover was made in 1999. With the help of a solicitor she requested that they use there discretion not to recover but the DWP stated there were not good enough grounds and refused, it went to tribunal which did not go in her favour.

Her debt worker is hoping to persuad the DWP to write off the outstanding debt and wondered whether there was something in the regs which allowed them to do this even thought they previously did not decide to use their discretion?

Hi,

I'm replying based on the assumption you are asking for advice about the Secretary of State's discretion to waive the right of recovery in recoverable overpayment cases.

I have had quite a few "waiver request" cases recently and was advised by the Debt Management policy section that repeat requests can be made as it is appreciated that client's circumstances do change. So it may be that in your client's case the decision to recover would now cause severe hardship and so a new request for waiver would be appropriate.

I received a copy of the internal guidance used by the section that decide waiver requests. Your colleague may find it useful to request a copy too. Its just titled "secretary of state waiver" and is obtainable from:

OPAC: Operational Advice and Correspondence, DM OPAC, Room 3s25, Quarry House, LS27 UA.

Hope this helps.

hi pip01,

would you be able to email or fax a copy of the 'secretary of state' waiver guidance to us?

if so, we could see if we can make it available on rightsnet.

our email address is [email protected] and our fax no is 0207 247 9924.

Hi Ken,

No problem.

I'm not very techie minded I'm afraid, I'm more of a paper and quill type, so I'll send it as a fax. Hope that's ok.

Should be with you shortly.

Cheers

P

Thanks to pip01 sending it to us, the Secretary of State's Waiver guidance is now available on rightsnet -

http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/pdfs/sec_of_state_waiver.pdf

Our experience has been that request for waiver is routinely refused, however a letter of support from the claimant's MP works wonders.

i have never seen the so called Secretary of State's waiver document before, and although i may yet find a use for it, i feel unspeakably angry to read its contents. i would like to know the history of this document - which doesn't appear to pre-date centralized Debt Management...what a ship of fools...

A very interesting document. Thank you!

I have a copy of instructions that form the basis of DWP policy on Secretary of State waiver on Word if any one needs it, useful if one wishes to cut & paste.

The question of the waiver was raised in a commissionairs decision, not able to recall it but will attempt to locate it.

Regards

Mitch.

mitch, i would be very interested to see the document. is it possible to forward to rightsnet please?

Will email it across similar to as mentioned earlier but this has 11pages including flow charts.

Speaking as devil's advocate, this sounds like a mighty big omission (a husband) and it may take some persuading that it is a suitable case for exercise of what, after all, is a matter of discretion.

thanks to mitch for sending it to us, a copy of the Secretary of State's waiver guidance is now available on rightsnet in a word document format -

http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/pdfs/Secretary_of_State_Waiver.doc