Scenario is - claimant already getting partial hb, awarded attendance allowance and therefore severe disability premium qualifying her for full hb. The change was notified to hb office within one month of the DWP Attendance Allowance notification letter date, but hb has only been increased from the Monday following notification to the authority, rather than the Monday following the award date, which was ten days before the notification date - so the change was notified to the local authority outside one month of the change actually occurring.

Is this correct? I'm sure I've seen somewhere that the month allowed for reporting advantageous changes starts from notification of a social security benefit award rather than the award date itself but can't find anything!

Help would be much appreciated!

Claimant cannot notify of a change in circumstances until they have been advised themselves of the change. Therefore I would say that the one month time limit to notify must start from the date the claimant was actually notifed.

I am sorry off the top of my head I cannot quote a reg to you - however this seems to be one of those rare occasions when common sense would dictate that the claimant has provided the informaiton within one month of being notified themselves so the increase in benefit entitlement should be from the Monday following the date of the actual change.

Hope this helps

See R(Anufrijeva) v Secretary of State for the Home Office where the House of Lords confirmed that where an adverse decision was made constitutional principle was that the clock started running from the date that the decision was notified to the claimant.

Although distinguished I think you could use this decision to argue the priciple has general application.

Regards
Paul

Secretary of State for the Home Department and another ex parte Anufrijeva (2003) is available here.

The HB/CTB D&A reg 7(2)(i) and 8(14)were amended in 2003 and an accompanying circular A35/2003 was issued. The changes allow a supersession on the award of a relevant benefit to be paid from the date on which the relevant benefit was awarded. The issue of an'advantageous change' having to be notified within 4 weeks from the date of notification does not appear to apply where the change is an award of a relevant benefit. Relevant benefits are the usual suspects - DLA, IB, CA etc. Reg 8(14) cannot be influenced by 8(3) therefore the superseding decision takes effect from the date on which entitlement to the relevant benefit arises.

There have been several threads on HB Info covering this point, and one contributor has reported responses from the DWP confirming the above. Having accepted this from the date the circular was issued, I had never checked any guidance books. However I cannot find such a reference in the CPAG handbook, Dis Rights Handbook or Zebedee et al's guide.

Whilst not disputing any of the advice so far given, this could of course just be a mistake by the LA which they would correct if it were pointed out to them. You may of course have already got beyond that and the LA are insisting they are correct in what they have done.

But I just thought I'd remind everyone that the simple things sometimes work best!

Thanks to everyone for their advice - I've sent a copy of the circular to benefits and await a response.