stainsby
Welfare Benefits Officer, Gallions Housing Association, Thamesmead SE London
Member since
22nd Jan 2004
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RE: IB & Change of circs
Fri 28-Oct-05 04:07 PM |
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A claimant must report a change of circumstance that he or she could reasonably expect would affect their benefit (HB Reg 75), but the adjudication process is an inquisitorial (see Kerr v Depratment for Social Development of Northern Ireland (House of Lords 2004 reported as R1/04(SF))
I would argue that if a person is getting short term incapacity benefit at whatever rate, then the Council is immediately put on notice that further information is required if the date the person became incapacitated is not already known. The Council will be in breach of its inquisitorial duty if it does not ask that question. An overpayment that resulted could be classed as official error. (An earlier decision CIS/222/1991 support this)
I successfully used that argument at a Tribunal where overpayments resulted from a person not reporting that her partners IB had increased from short term high rate to long term. The claimant held that in any case she did not know of the increase as they had separate bank accounts. The Tribunal held that the overpayments were caused by the Council's own errors and were not recoverable.
The increase to long term often results in underpayments because of the award of the disbility premium, but the premium was already in payment in her case.
I think that in most cases of this nature the c of c is something that a claimant could reasonably expect could affect their benefit entitlement, but as I have illustrated this may not always be so, and the consequences of not reporting are not straightfroward. If the change is advantageous ie it results in the award of a premium, there may be times when it will be possible to argue that there were special circmstances that are relevant to the late supersession application.
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