Hi, we have an appeal next week against an IS overpayment of >£16K since 2001. I have to post off my written sub tomorrow (no personal rep as it's LSC funded) so would really appreciate any advice asap.

My client has been incapable of work (an unbelievable 57 points from PCA) but done some sporadic acting work as an extra over the period. In 1998 the DWP accepted it was therapeutic but now they say he has been overpaid from 2001 due to income from earnings being over the prescribed limit. They say they've only gone from 2001 as his agent didn't have records before then. Curiously the period of o/p is for exact tax years - 5 years from 6th April to 5th April but I don't know how significant this is.

Anyway when it became permitted work they say they sent out a mail shot which my client says he never received.

At a recent Crown Court hearing it was finally accepted £3K had been overpaid so this substantially reduced the o/p for the criminal matter. I am aware of the different standards of proof in criminal and civil cases so know it's not cut and dried so I'm trying to throw everything in to this appeal to try to reduce it.

I'm wondering if a possible offset of DPTC would be relevant to this but can't remember dates or details of DPTC and whether the DWP would have had to consider such an offset had it been at the time when these tax credits existed.

All advice gratefully received.
Many thanks
Sue

Not sure if the Court of Appeal's decision in Hooper v Secretary of State for Work & Pensions (2007) may be worth looking at.

In brief, the Court held that the wording in a DWP factsheet about permitted work was too ambiguous to constitute an instruction to report starting work.

Although your client maintains he never received any information about permitted work would it be possible to argue that even on the basis he had it was not clear enough for him to be to have breached the duty to disclose?

The reason that the o/p has been calculated for complete tax years is almost certainly because the DWP is acting on information received via a data-matching exercise, probably from IR. Since IR information is always for complete tax years, this is the period for which they have proof of earnings.