I hope you can help with this one. Client's wife left him in 1994 and at the time he was in receipt of Income Support for the whole family and DLA high rate care for himself. He is still getting IS and high rate Care DLA since then but only realised in August that SDP had not been added to claim. He says he informed the local BA office of the change of circs at the time and he does not remember an IS10 ever being filled (he's not the brightest with paperwork, frankly). JCP have backdated his SDP only one month but I'm trying to put an argument together to backdate it further, the whole way if possible. Does anyone have any pointers for me and where to find any related regs?? Many thanks

Check out Paul's reply to Sue's posting 'telephone calls' on the 'decision making and appeals section of the discussion forum, it will give you some good pointers, particularly related to your clients assertion that he notified his change of circs, and again another Paul advice remedy write and ask relevant office "for all copies of correspondence between relevant office and your client held on file, copies off all case entries held on his file detailing all telephone contacts and where these are incomplete, computer printouts recording said information" covering relevant dates (i.e. between 1994 - 2008).

One of these days i'll have an original idea?

If the guy made a new claim based on a change of circumstances when his wife left, and the local office was aware that he was getting SDP, I can't see that they have any grounds for not backdating his award right back to 1994. There should be no need to prove he told them something they already knew, should there?

He wouldn't have been getting SDP in 1994 because his wife lived with him (unless she was disabled too. If he filled in a CoC form, did they know the fact that gives rise to his entitelement - that he was on the appropriate rate of a disability benefit? You don't "apply" for a premium, you just apply for benefit and explain your circumstances. It's then up to the DM to assess you correctly. A wrong decision, which was obviously wrong a the time it was made and which is actually the result of official error, can be revised at any time.
If however he never told the incoe support office any fact which could have led them to realise he was entitled to the premium, then it isn't official error and the normal backdating rules for CoCs apply.

Sorry. I meant to say "if the office knew he was getting DLA.............." not SDP. And I agree with Ariadne. You don't have to apply for a premium, so if the office was aware, at the time, that DLA was in payment then they already were aware of the fact which would have made SDP payable and the decision can, and should be revised and arrears backdated in full as it is an official error.

I shall type more carefully in future.

Hello.

I think he is entitled to the s.d.p. back to when wife moved out under regs 6(2)(e) and 7(7)(a)of the Social Security (Decisions and Appeals) Regs 1999, whether or not he told them she had moved out at the time.

6(2)(e) allows for supersession where someone is awarded a relevant benefit and, subsequent to that, becomes entitled to an increase in another relevant benefit and reg 7(7)(a) says that the change should be from when the person became entitled to the increase in that benefit (i.e.1994 in your case).

Cheers Ros

My only concern about that would be that the particular changes to the regs were introduced at much later dates than 1994 and were not in the regs in the forms they are now in 1994. 7(7) (a) seems only to have been introduced in 2006: the various bits of 6(2) in 2000 and 2001. I do not know whether retrospective effect is possible.