Yound Person Lone Parent - Not allowed to claim?

I’m bashing my head against the wall in frustration with this one, because I simply can’t see where DWP are coming from.

Client is 17 years old, has a 3 week old baby. No partner on the scene.  She was in college until June, baby born end of July.  Her parents threw her out of home when they foudn she was pregnant & she’s since been living with her sister, also a lone parent.  Client is claiming Child Ben & CTC.

She’s tried to claim Income Support, but according to her, she has been informed that she won’t qualify anyway, and her sister can just support her.  She’s phoned DWP on a number of occasions & been told that because she’s a young person, they will have to phone her back, but calls have not been returned.

The only possible sticking point I can see is if the sister was in receipt of CB/CTC in respect of my client while she was in college.  However, her course has now finished & there’s no benefits in payment in respect of her at all.

hi lorraine

i too can’t see any reason why your client should not be on IS - i think someone needs to contact DWP on her behalf and insist she be allowed to make a claim, not to mention ask for backdating on grounds that misadvised she wasn’t entitled.

i have found it quite common for young claimants to ‘fobbed off’ like this and need someone to advocate for them.

anyone else got any ideas why she wouldn’t be entitled?

cheers ros

No….unless someone’s still getting Child Benefit for her…..however the original post states there are no benefits in place for her at all so i too would suggest someone contact JC on her behalf.

Paper claim?

Link to claim form if you need it: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/advisers/claimforms/a1_print.pdf

Tony

Did you get anywhere with this? I had a very frustrating experience with an under 18s adviser at a local jobcentre. Client is 16, at college 4 hours a week only, main carer for her mother who has MS and is going through a bad relapse. Mother has claimed PIP - I advised the 16 year old to claim IS on the “up to 26 weeks while cared for person waiting for decision on a PIP claim” route. Contact Centre registered the claim on a phone call and contacted the adviser who rang the client later that day and told her she couldn’t claim IS as she was still within the Child Benefit extension period. Child Ben had stopped on the terminal date and her mother hadn’t applied for it to be paid during the extension period in any case and had no intention of doing so once I advised about the IS claim. I rang the adviser and explained the situation to her and she reluctantly agreed to see the client to complete the A1. I gave the client a note to explain the circumstances of the claim again to give to the adviser. So she duly went down to the jobcentre where the adviser wrote “No” on my note and gave it back to her with instructions for her mother to claim Child Benefit. She also gave her a Carers Allowance claim form which is of course pointless in the circumstances. I have since tried 3 times to speak to the adviser but she is avoiding my phone calls and not calling back. I gave up and printed off an A1 and we sent it in last week - no response yet so I’ll be interested to see what happens. I don’t see that the under 18s adviser needs to be involved in this process at all, and even less now that her lack of knowledge is revealed. I still want to talk to her though..

There is a similar thread here.

http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/3652/

And by the way.  They can’t stop her making a claim.  See reg 4(5) of the Claims and Payments Regs.

No of course they cannot prevent her making a claim and she has indeed done so as I explained. I want to speak to the adviser to try and prevent this happening to other young people who don’t have a WRO in the background to sort things out.

“And by the way.  They can’t stop her making a claim.  See reg 4(5) of the Claims and Payments Regs”.

That was addressed to Lorraine as the heading to her post says “....not allowed to claim”.