Notional Benefiy

Sorry gang but senior moments. If two claimants living together are charged with repaying an overpayment of IS. During the op period there was no entitlement of IS. They were entitled to SDA. Would the OP be increased, decreased or not affected if it had have been argued that during the period of OP were entitled to carers allowance and therefore the SDP each. My feeling is decreased but every time I think about it I get a reason that all 3 outcomes could apply.

Another comment may be useful for confidence. To reduce o/p’s, DWP can set-off what the claimant would have been entitled to had DWP known all the facts at the time. However, it is limited to the benefit that was o/p’d. I had a case of an IS o/p that went to tribunal, where I argued an ESA u/p should be set-off against the IS o/p as the person was signed off at the time. However, the rules do not allow for this (in the above case we got lucky because there was a single line in the appeal papers that suggested an ESA claim had at least been made in a vague, unofficial way, so the Judge ordered the ESA claim to be processed for the o/p period).

Therefore, Tony’s comment is quite right. If the CA unit could be convinced to award CA for a past period, JCP must then include the CP in the calculation.

For clarity:

SDA - Severe Disablement Allowance (old benefit in its own right for sickness, sort-of like ESA)
SDP - Severe Disability Premium (means-tested premium paid with IS, ESA etc.)
CP - Carer Premium (means-tested premium paid with IS, ESA etc.)