Since the DWP have farend out their recovery of alleged overpayments I keep coming across cases of demands for money appearing ut of the blue with no semblance of any attempt to justify them by reference to law or any explanation of why they should be recoverable. Even worse, they seem to ignore appeals and go ahead and demand the money anyway without waiting for the matter to be adjudicated.

Anyione else having these problems? I saw one for over £9000 this week. "You were overpaid benefit from 1996 to 2001. Please repay £9000 by 12 April." Eh?

One of our clients recently had a very interesting intervention for Commissioner Mesher. Huge great overpayment claimed (over £60 k IS) Forsoem reason when the case was adjourned she never got the notice or the revised date so heard in absence, decision affirmed. Didn't get decision notice. Late application for statement of reasons - statement refused. Leave to appeal refused. Application for leave to commissioner who spotted that there had never been a decision revising the award of benefit, they'd gone straight from finding she was LTHAW to an overpayment decision without withdrawing beenfit. Commissioner v cross with DWP and decided that Tribunal ahd no jurisdiction.

Moral: always look for the revision/supersession of the award as no overpayment is recoverable without it. Neither is it recoverable if all the elements are not proved include the calculation of the amount. The practice is shoddy and quite possibly unlawful. I doubt these recovery people have the power to make an overpayemnt decision either so there is probably no valid decision on that either.

I suspect that many of the overpayments so treated may be ones which are not recoverable anyway!

One of my clients has just got one - recovery of £404.80 overpaid IS. I have just appealed on the grounds that there was not failure to disclose - it was on the application form!. In response they have a letter saying that £46.70 will be deducted from their fortnightly benefit.

My client is getting ICB and about £20 IS a week. Even if they were right to recover I thought they were limited to the £8.70 a week.

The last time we had a disagreement with Recoveries, they did state that it is their policy not to recover whilst there is an appeal outstanding .........

There are two decisions appealable - one, that there has been an overpayment, and two, that the overpayment is recoverable. As most of us are now finding, the first that a client knows about any overpayment is when they start getting letters from Recovery, even when the overpayment decision might well have been made in a local office or "benefit delivery centre".
Our problem has been getting full details of the circumstances surrounding the alleged overpayment - usually take weeks, and then when we do put in an appeal, we get told we're out of time! It's like pulling teeth - trying to explain politely and patiently that one can't lodge an appeal until one knows what one is appealing against and the date of the decision in question etc etc .....

this suggests we're the acceptable cost of risk management. unlawful recovery procedure which isn't challenged, is a neat profit for the government (providing you ignore or negate the costs of social injustice.) it is inconceivable that the senior managers of debt recovery are ignorant of the law, isn't it?

In conversations we've had with debt recovery in the past they have said that their position is that they are charged with recovering overpayments that are notified to them.

It doesn't appear to part of their job to check whether the correct process has been adhered to prior to the case being sent to them, and it often seems to be the case that they don't know there is an appeal been lodged until we tell them.

What is worrying is the fact that the client doesn't appear to know that there has been a review of their case (resulting in an overpayment decision) until the initial contact with the debt recovery unit, and have not therefore had the chance to challenge any such decision at the onset. In addition, a number of the cases we've seen have been related to previous claim periods, in some cases several years past.

Going back to our previous post, you could even argue that there are not two, but three decisions all of which are appealable, in that the Decision maker has to first decide whether:-

1. there are grounds to review a previous decision, ie, a change of circumstances which the claimant should have reasonably known that the said change of circumstances may well affect their entitlement,
2. that there has been an subsequent overpayment of benefit
3. and that the overpayment is recoverable due to the fact that it was caused solely by the claimant, and not (for example) as a result of official error.

Given the complexities of benefit law, whether a claimant could reasonbly know what would or would not affect their entitlement is arguable - after several years of recieving SDP for example, how many claimants would immediately realise the importance of the connection between entitlement to that premium and a non dependant appearing on the scene so to speak?

We have experienced the same problems here.I had an informal discussion with someone at the Debt Recovery Unit who told me that if an appeal was launched before recovery began then recovery would be suspended pending the outcome but if the appeal was launched after recovery began then the deductions would continue. I am struggling to find any legal basis for this.Admittedly I havn't had as much time as i would like to to investigate in depth and I would be grateful if anyone has any ideas.

With regard to the problem of out of the blue debt recovery notices I can only agree - many claimants seem not to have recieved any sort of decision notice at all or it was recieved so long ago that they have either forgotten about it or didn't realise that it would give rise to an O/P.

We're seeing more and more problems with the debt centres too - especially Bradford.

Interestingly, I found out that when decisions regarding recoverable overpayments are revised in the claimants favour, the computer system at the debt centre has no way to alter the system info and so the decisions recieved from the BDC's are being stockpiled. This could result in continued recovery of overpayments that have already been determined to be non-recoverable.

Incidentally, does anyone know why the debt centres are given names that don't reflect their geographical location? The Debt Centre Bradford appears to be located in several places - Darlington and Gloucester are two that we know about...

...and the Glasgow office is in Mitcheldean, Gloucestershire, not that I understand why a claimant from Derbyshire is being deal with by Glasgow/Glos anyway. And Darlington is apparently the Dearne Valley bebt centre even though Darlington is most definitely not in the Dearne Valley, which is in South Yorkshire.

i didn't know they'd moved Darlington to Dearne Valley! that must be why Nuneaton is now in Darlington! : )

...and might also explain why Salford is in Camberley!

...there's something strange about seeing the words Salford and Camberley in the same sentance ......

Yeah, it would be akin to seeing Everton in the Champions League.

...or Darlington

virtual offices does mean they are virtually nowhere ....and, therefore, virtually unaccountable!

We regualrly have similar problems - in no particular order of frustration:

Debt centre appear to be set up to act like a private sector debt recovery agency and only act on instructions provided by the originating office (IS, IB, DLA etc). This means they won't take any action / cease action / revise a decision unless authorised by that office (even when presented with blindingly obvious evidence etc).

We have had cases where, for example, there never was an overpayment because withdrawl of the benefit in question would have been replaced with an increase in IS.

They consistently say they have not received an appeal (even when presented with umpteen fax confirmation sheets and duplicate copies).

There appears no process of liasion between debt management and the originating office. Or, following a sucesful appeal, of debt centre being notified of the decision and any action stopped (or sums already recovered refunded).

....and have you ever had a consistent account of progress of a case between one contact and the next?

They don't even know where they send the appeals to be written (they should normally be prepared by the appeals section of the originating office).

In short nobody knows anything, nobody will take responsibility for anything or seek to correct mistakes (or ring back). They won't even accept a signed GL24 as authority to act (see seperate thread).