I applied for a funeral payment (in time) on behalf of a tenant. As the final funeral bill was not originally in his name (as his brother-in-law had made all the arrangements at the time of his long-term partners death)it took sometime to arrange for the bill to be changed into our tenants name. The bill was submitted approx 6-8wks later, as soon as it was received but outwith the 3 month time-limit. The claim was lapsed but no letter issued to advise that this was the case. I have appealed but they won't accept this either as no decision was made on the original claim. I note from previous posts that this is probably because the claims and payments Regs 19 don't cover Social Fund payments??

Anyway, they have now agreed to revisit the original claim and issue a nil decision on this, so allowing for another appeal to made. My dilema is whether to appeal on the grounds that discretion wasn't exercised in allowing more time for evidence to be submitted, or whether I could argue that he should have been exempt from the evidence requirement as the evidence didn't exist at the time i.e.final funeral bill. Should I appeal on both or am I missing something??

Cheers.

There is no question of the claim ‘lapsing’. A claim legally requires an ‘outcome decision, in writing and notified to the claimant. Until that is done the claim is ‘live’ despite what the DWP think.

If the information and evidence requirements are not met then an ‘outcome decision’ still has to be made in the manner above. If your client fulfils all the conditions of entitlement then this can be re-visited at the appeal and nothing else should really matter. If this is the case, why are the Department wasting your client’s time and public money sending this down to TAS? Or have I missed something?

A funeral payment is a benefit as defined by Reg 2(2) of the C&P Regs and Section 138(1)(a) of the SSC&B Act and thus the provisions of Regs 4 and 6 of the C&P Regs.

.....and thus the provisions of Regs 4 and 6 of the C&P Regs apply.

Thanks for the regs.
Why are the department wasting time and money? - that's a question that runs through my mind (and I'm sure a lot of other peoples) every other day. They do have the claim and all the evidence they need, our tenant is entitled to the funeral payment. Their problem is that it took some weeks for the funeral bill to be changed into our tenants name - they failed to exercise discretion (and common sense) in allowing time for this change to happen. You can't submit evidence that doesn't exist, even the DWP must realise that.