Have elderly client who has been notified by LA Benefits section that they have incurred HB/CTB overpayment over £1300.

I've appealled decision and requested SOR.

We have received a SOR which only details the income used and what the appropriate amounts are and were.

I am unable to get my hands on any guidance that will advise me what the LA are required to provide in the SOR.

Any advice on this matter would be grately appreciated.

Jim...

I'd say bung an appeal in and see if they can manage to explain it in the submissions (this is by no means guaranteed!) Meanwhile ask for reconsideration and more details.

Remember that at a tribunal it's up to them to prove that there has been an OP and how much it is before you can even get as far as worrying about recoverability.

Are the figures they have used right, by the way?

I agree with Ariadne, but in answer to your question (what should be included in a statement of reasons?), there is no statutory specification of what should be included.

Sch 9 of the HB regulations provides for what must be included in a decision notice, and includes the right to request a 'statement of reasons'. Nothing in the schedule, or anywhere else in the regs, as far as I can tell, says what should be inlcuded in the statement of reasons. Therefore, the authority can put in it what they want.

If your thinking of following up with the authority about the inadequate reasons, you might want to point them in direction of the HB guidance manual (chapter 10), which confirms the broader aim of administrative change in 1998-99, and the provision of a statement of reasons, is to:

1. make sure that incorrect decisions are put right at the earliest possible opportunity; and
2. provide a good customer service.

Neither of these aims are met if the statement of reasons does not allow a claimant to understand how a decision was reached.

As a (somewhat important) afterthought, your client will be looking for a statement of reasons to contain:

1. full details of the income and capital used;
2. details of how the overpayment occurred;
3. details of how the authority have decided that it is recoverable including the cause of the overpayment (i.e. claimant error or official error), any contribution by the claimant to that cause, and whether or not the client could reasonably have been expected to realise she was being overpaid.

Thanks for your views ariadne2 and Tony. The LA have only provided a breakdown of how they calculated the client's HB/CTB entitlement as well as about a dozen different reasons for the "overpayment".

I will write to the LA asking for the details noted above as it has always been my understanding from previous appeal tribunals that any SOR should among other things be easy for a client to understand the decision as well as the reasons for the decision. In this case you would need to employ a Phili lawyer.

I am hoping in some warp way that the case does proceed to appeal as I'm confident that they tribunal will have a field day looking at the decision under appeal. Although not for the poor client's sake.

Cheers folks...

So far it seems to me thast you have not been given any reasons at all for the alleged overpayments (the LA must give those from the outset)

Reasons such as "your income support ended" are not valid. (I recently got an appeal before a Tribunal some 3 years after the "decison" on that one.

Income support endeding may be the initial grounds for the required supersession, but not for the ouctome overpayment decision (IS could end because pension credit was warded for example)

A proper reason would be eg:

"Your income support ended because you inherited £15000. Income of £36 is assumed when you have savings of this amount and when this is added to your other income of £X means that your housing benefit is now reduced to £y (please see the other documsnts explaining your new entitlement). The overpayments are recoverable because neither the Council or the Depatmnet for Work and Pensions were not told of the change until (date) and so it was not caused by an official error either by the council orby the DWP"

Reasons must be sufficient for the claimant to be able to understand why the alleged overpayments occurred and why they are recoverable.

Whilst there is not statutory prescipion for what must be contained in a SOR, the requirements have been established in case law over many years

The principles set out for example by the Commissioner in R(A)1/72 apply equally to HB decision making. The Commissioner wrote at paras 4 and 5:

4. An appeal lies to the Commissioner only on the ground of error of law (see section 6(4) of the Act and regulations made thereunder). Consequently I could hold that the Board in the review decision had wrongly determined a question of law if I were satisfied that it contained a false proposition of law ex facie, or that it was supported by no evidence, or that the facts found were such that no person acting judicially and properly instructed as to the relevant law could have come to the determination in question (see Global Plant Ltd. v. Secretary of State for Social Services <1972> 1 Q.B. 139).

5. To these grounds there must be added the further considerations that any breach of the obligation to act according to the demands of natural justice, or failure adequately to observe the requirement in regulation 14(2) of the National Insurance (Attendance Allowance) Regulations 1971 to set out the reasons for the review decision in writing would support an appeal based on error of law. The claimant’s case was in substance based on this last consideration."

The Tribunal sits in the place of the initial decision maker, and there is no reason to suppose that the decison maker should be expected to work to less exacting standards than a Tribunal given that both the DM and the Tribunal must decide the issues on the basis of the same law