Hello everyone, some help needed here. Situation us as follows:
Client has a very disabled child in receipt of HR care and HR mob DLA. She was living with a partner and they were getting IS at the couple's rate and she was also getting CA. They split up in November 06, client reapplied for IS/IB as a single person.She was awarded IB and CA continued to be paid (in error) till February 07 when they wrote to her to say that she wan't entitled to it anymore. She did not know she could get the carer's premium and so has missed out on 12 months + of it and as been on IB only since then.
Can we do anything about it? I requested the original form for IS/IB that she submitted. If it appears that she completed it correctly and declared she was in receipt of carer's allowance, should they have just switched her to the carer's premium or is it correct that her claim for CA would stop and she would have to reapply for it and be awarded the premium?

If the only reason her CA award ceased was because she was awarded IB then she is still entitled to the carer premium which has, hopefully, been included in her claim for Council Tax Benefit (and Housing Benefit if she is renting) ever since?

If she claimed IS as a single person and entered on her claim that she was either in receipt of CA or would be getting it were it not for the fact that she had been awarded an overlapping benefit then the mistake was the Department's.

No need for her to make a fresh claim for CA in order to obtain the underlying entitlement as far as I am aware.

Can you just clarify something- was she ever awarded IS as a single person, or was it just IB and CA (subsequently just IB)?

It was just IB and CA. Does that make any difference? Thanks for your help.

I'd agree with the other response, so long as it was a combined IB/IS claim form, or she at least specifically claimed IS. If there was no actual claim to IS then you could perhaps argue that it would have been good practice for the DWP to invite one but not necessarily official error not to. But if an IS claim of any kind was made in its own right then I agree this was official error and they should award it back to the date of claim.

Who was the claimant in the couple claim?

If it was your client, then IS should have been superseded on change of circs since she still met a condition of entitlement (lone parent). In which case, CP should have been included in the reassessment and a late appeal might be appropriate. If it was the partner, then agree with previous contributors.

Yep, Tony's right - it completely went out of my head that she's a lone parent. He's spot on, if she was the claimant it should have been a cic and they should have considered the premium.

I forgot to say thank you all for your incredible support!
Fingers crossed!