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Hello
I work for an Advocacy Agency in Selby, North Yorkshire and am writing to bring your attention to a welfare benefits appeal which recently affected one of our clients. Fortunately our client won the appeal, but I have concerns that the position from the DWP may affect many other people in our client’s position. I am therefore writing as a way of bringing this issue to a wider forum, as knowing that the decision has been successfully appealed may assist someone else in a similar situation.
By way of background, our client is a young man (18-25) with a learning disability who lives with a carer as part of an Adult Placement Scheme (APS). However, for thirty-eight weeks of the year he attends residential college which is funded (directly to the college) by the Learning and Skills Council. The advocacy role with the client involved supporting him and his APS carer through an appeals process, whereby they had contested a decision by the DWP to withdraw incapacity benefit in respect of periods of residence at college.
The DWP argued that the funding our client received for his residential course was a ‘training allowance’, because it covered his accommodation and food (despite our client following a 24 hour curriculum). Therefore using the definition of ‘training allowance’ in ‘Overlapping Benefits Regulations’, DWP argued that our client’s incapacity benefit ‘overlapped’ funding for his residential course and withdrew the benefit, leaving our client with only disability living allowance to live off. This meant that he was unable to pay his Adult Placement Fees, which had been calculated over a 52 week period by social services (and when not at college) was in danger of presenting homeless. At appeal we argued that the DWP were misapplying the regulations and the appeal tribunal agreed and reinstated our client’s incapacity benefit.
In a wider context this case is a concern because although the original decision to withdraw incapacity benefit was made at a local level, it was underpinned by a specialist decision maker in DWP’s national office (part of the Adjudication and Constitutional Issues Division). So the worry is that if DWP roll out this decision nationally it could mean that people with learning disabilities are deterred from going to college, because they could lose their benefits, which seems discriminatory.
Unfortunately our agency does not have much experience in relation to welfare benefits and I am aware that I have presented a rather simplistic view of the legal arguments. However I do have the relevant appeal papers, including the statement from DWP’s Specialist Decision Maker and the Appeal Tribunal’s ‘Statement of Reason’s’, explaining why they overturned the decision and my client is happy for me to anonymise these documents so that they can be shared with others. I have also brought this case to the attention of the Learning and Skills Council as it revolves around how their funding is interpreted by the DWP.
I hope that you find this information useful.
Best regards
Lindsey (Student Social Worker)
Selby District Advocacy
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