Hi Amanda,
This looks fairly straightforward on the face of it.
Your client 'registered for' and 'started' a full-time course of education at least three months before her 20th birthday. You say she attended so that takes care of the 'attending within a term of registering' provision. These three stipulations govern who counts as 'a person under 25' for IB purposes. The fourth, the one about tax years simply limits when a claim can be made. The restriction says that for a claim made at any particular time, lets say 2004, the course must have ended no earlier than the start of the relevant tax years. For 2004 benefit year (Jan to Jan) the relevant tax years would be April 2001 to April 2003. So, to take advantage of this now, your client would have to show that she finshed the course no earlier than 7 April 2001.
This is not the case (she finished April 2000), so your client cannot claim IB now. She could however, have claimed anytime from April 2001 (when the IB youth rules started) up to the end of 2003 (assuming course finished after 6th April 2000. If it finished before 6 April, then she would only be able to claim up to end 2002 as the last two COMPLETE tax years would be April 1999 to April 2001).
Lookin at possible ex-gratia payments, the decision refusing IB in 2000 was OK because IB in youth didn't exist then. You'd need to look at when further enquiries were made. If they were between April 01 and end 2003 (or 2002 - whichever applies) then there may a case for ex-gratia payments. Nevertheless, your client should realise that any payment she MIGHT get, would be IB less IS received and so it still might not amount to much.
Assuming the second enquiry was in April 2001 then LT IB would be payable from April 2002 Lost money would be the difference between IB and IS (DP on IS would already be payable). for each week from April 02. Somewhere over £500.
Your client should compare a lump sum that MIGHT be that much (bet your bottom dollar the DWP will argue the toss) against what your client might be losing in prescriptions, HB, CTB, dental treatment, sight tests, etc...
Sorry this a bit long winded - hope it all makes sense.
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