overpaid ns/jsa can it be recovered regardless of cause ?????

My client has been told she has been overpaid ns/jsa, she has not claimed UC as she has savings over the limit, is it correct that the overpayment can be recovered even though she may not be at fault, the client worked and was paid for her work late, several months late , she argues that she did the work in a period before she claimed the ns/jsa, so we will challenge the overpayment but I am worried as it has been suggested that as she comes under the UC system it can be recovered regardless , comments please
it seems there is one period when she did some training and was paid for it when she claimed ns/jsa , she was only paid £75 but DWP have slapped a £50 penalty on, the other periods , several months, are in dispute as above

You only need to think about recoverability once its established that there has actually been an overpayment. Your client’s argument, whatever the merits of it may be, is simply that she has not been overpaid at all, as she didn’t do any work during the period of the award. She can still make that argument.

Under the old system, you could argue that a person had been overpaid but that this overpayment was not recoverable from them, for example because it was the result of official error rather than misrepresentation/failure to disclose. Those arguments are not available under the new system (i.e. UC and nsJSA/ESA), but they do not seem to have any application to the case you are dealing with.

thanks Elliot
yes she has a prima facia case for no overpayment, but it all seems a bit odd theta DWP should come up with a list of dates when they say she worked but she says not.  might end up at a Tribunal I suspect. It could turn out she is arguing she only worked on certain days but the DWP may have taken a whole week into account, I need to check out the huge spreadsheet she has provide with her shift pattern