Please Help!! I'm assisting a client with an appeal against an OP of Income Support during the period 09/02/2007 to 06/08/2007. This has already been to appeal, however was refused. I now need assistance appealing to a Commissioner, which I’ve never done before!!!

Brief background

Client was claiming Income Support as a lone parent she failed to disclose to the DWP that she was a prisoner from 09/02/2007. Whilst in prison her eldest Daughter ceased employment and moved into her Mothers property to care for her three siblings. She continued to receive IS (family premium included), HB, CTB ChB in her Mother's name. Although Social Services were involved, neither the client nor her Daughter was given appropriate advice about changing over the benefits into the Daughters name. In addition to this the client’s mental health at the time of imprisonment was very poor.

I’m now in receipt of the Statement of Written Reasons.

• I argued (for the appeal) that the client was not properly notified of the decision, as the DWP did not evidence (in screen prints) of its decision or have evidence of notification to the client (the chairman agreed with this).
• Also Regulation 2(b) of the Decision and Appeals Regulations require notification to ‘last known address’. The DWP sent notification to the clients home address, even though they knew her ‘last known address’ was the prison address.
• I also requested the overpayment be offset against payments that would have been paid to the Daughter. If she had been properly advised she would have been entitled to IS and CTC in her own right.

Point one and two were rejected - the reason why the chairman disagreed was because the client actually took a copy of the decision letter (dated 21/08/2007) to the hearing with her, although a copy of this document was not in the appeal bundle.

What I’m trying to argue is that although the decision letter was sent to the client’s home address, she did not receive a copy of this letter till 2 months after being released from prison. The DWP knew her last address to be the prison address. Therefore I feel the that lack of notification invalidates the decision. Am I going round in circles??!!! Does anyone have any ideas as to how this can be challenged further?

There is also the point of offsetting the overpayment, which the chairman stated ‘there was no offsetting power that could be applied’. I have read the case CIS/546/2008 does anyone think this case would apply??

Help!!! I would be ever so grateful.

Assuming there are no grounds to set aside the Tribunal decision your next course of action would be to request leave to appeal to the Upper Tribunal due to an error of law in the decision.

A good reference for identifying an error of law can be found at page 262 of The Disability Rights Handbook.

Regards

Nicky