Hi
I have a client who lives in a supported housing accommodation with support worker on site. In Feb06 her partner left because of DV against her, reported to police, social worker involved with child etc.

She reported change to HB and a review was issued to claimant and subsequent residency check arranged as they believed the partner was still their.

Her child at the same time started fitting and was very unwell, lots of emergency hospital visits, so kept missed residency checks.

She missed residency check but support worker made client ring to re-arrange straight away, everytime. Claim was suspended from Feb06, and subsequently cancelled in April 06 back to 27.2.06.

About 6 residency checks have been missed since Feb 06. HB were still trying to arrange in June, which suprised me as they had cancelled the claim in April. Support Worker at the time thought that as soon as they had done a residency check that it would be put back into payment, even though cancelled in April.

A new claim has been submitted in Aug and paid from 17.8.06 but not backdated to Feb.

My question is should the LA have a more diverse appraoch to obtaining information on the ex-partners whereabouts. Could they not check I.S., the client had reproted her change to I.S. and was claiming as a single person from Feb06. The Support worker on site confirmed she was their and partner was not. Could they have knocked on neighbours doors to confirm the partner was not their. This is surely reasonable evidence to support the claim her partner is no longer their.

Any thoughts please

hi

i have quite a few thoughts, but to help me give a concise response, could you first clarify -

before the separation, were they claiming IS/JSA and HB as a couple?
do you know the basis of the belief that ex-partner was still living there?
what was given as the reason for the termination of the claim in the April decision?
which decision is your appeal against?

cheers

jj

Hi jj
1.Yes they were claiming as a couple
2.Could you re-word your second question i'm not sure i understand
3.The review claim form had not been returned on time
4.HB was suspended in Feb06 then cancelled in April back to Feb, so the decision letter received in April cancelling back to Feb

Hope that is clear.
Thanks

thanks

yes, you mentioned that they believed her ex-partner was still living there, and also that HB was suspended more or less straightaway following the report of her change in circumstances. i wondered what grounds the LA had for believing that her ex-partner was still there?

it sounds rather confusing, what with immediate suspension, postal review forms _and_ visits, and attempts to arrange a visit in June...

the guidance in http://www.dwp.gov.uk/publications/dwp/2006/hbct/security-manual.pdf

indicates that the time for returning review forms can be extended where this is reasonable. it also provides that where evidence is later provided, the LA should consider reinstating the benefit.

you might also want to have a look at this discussion thread...
http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=3741&mesg_id=3741&page=2

anyway, i'm glad you have an appeal against the decision - a contentious area you can see...but if you are in birmingham?? i don't expect your appeal will get to the tribunal. if you have an appeal submission from them, please astound me!! : )

i can't really see that the LA had grounds to suspend benefit - she reported a change in circs which was that her partner had left the household - it was a DV case, with the police involved, a social worker and an on-site support worker, and she is in supported housing,
implying vulnerability of some kind. it's possible of course, that she made a false change of circumstances report, fairly elaborately involving other these other agencies, but i'm not sure to what end, because if her partner was in fact with her, she would still have been entitled to HB!!

it just goes to show how these levels of (expensive) support still haven't prevented your client from losing 6 months of HB and CTB???

even more astounding, it seems by the performance standards and targets of the admin guidance, that the LA's actions would be judged
to have achieved desirable results when the reality is quite the opposite, and i can't see that any measurement is being made of the harmful consequences.

see also para 14
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/hbctb/circulars/2005/a21-2005.pdf

i've assumed your client was already the claimant, not sure if i was correct to do so. also, not clear to me why this was a review case - a risk-based review? maybe an HB expert here can throw light? : )

anyway, and sorry this has not been concise, evidence from the support worker would be very helpful in an appeal, if it gets that far. 6 ineffective visits sounds a lot, but if your client had multiple problems, and especially if times of visits weren't pre-arranged, corroboration from the support worker would be useful. you could also request notes of the telephone calls from the LA.

i personally wouldn't want to suggest that the LA could have questionned neighbours, with confidentiality and privacy implications, but would question the reasonableness of their actions and the circumstances.

the backdate refusal also offers a second bite of the cherry.
purely pragmatically, changing a back-date refusal seems to be our LAs preferred way of sorting out messes like this one, and i'd expect that setting our your client's case in a letter of complaint would do the trick.

i hope this is of some help, but if it has actually got farther along in the appeal process, maybe you could outline the LA's argument?

jj

Hi,

Missing six visits would normally be enough for an LA to decide that a person is not resident. However, you should consider whether the visits were notified or not... if they weren't this would strengthen your case. However, that means she missed 6 unnotified visits!?

It sounds like the LA have taken reasonable steps to determine residency here as they have used both visits and forms to establish residency. Was there some other reason why your client missed the interviews that the LA should know about? This might help her case or indeed the backdate application.

I strongly agree with jj above that to knock on neighbours doors would be wrong. LAs should not part take in this kind of practice, its a bad a staring through letter boxes and is a complete breach of human rights and privacy.

Evidence from the support worker is relevant to the appeal and you might want to add to this by producing utility bills (if possible) showing fuel useage was normal at the home. If the home phone bill is itemised this could be useful voluntary evidence of continued residency and occupation. However, you client might not want to give this information to the LA.

Good luck with your appeal.

Regards
Daren