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PIP, UC & DHP
Hello,
I am stuck (yet again) and reaching out to access the wisdom and experience of the rightsnet community!
32 year old client is sole tenant of a 2bedroom HA property. She had a stroke in August 2017 (while travelling) was admitted to local hospital and returned to UK in October 2017. She applied for UC and PIP in January. She has a rent shortfall of about £10pw. No decision on PIP as yet.
We applied for a DHP in March requesting assistance while she waits for the PIP decision. Just got a call from council saying that they have not yet made a decision re: DHP as they are waiting for a PIP decision. The reason they are waiting for her PIP to be paid is because there will not be any shortfall after her PIP is in payment. Tried explaining to Council Lady that PIP decision can take a while and after payment, it is intended to cover the additional costs resulting from her disability. Council Lady insists on seeing the legislation which states that PIP is intended for disability costs only and need not be considered as income for purposes of rent.
Am I way off here?
Thanks,
Well there’s the gov guidance:
3.9 When deciding how to treat income from disability-related benefits such as
Disability Living Allowance (DLA) or the Personal Independence Payment
(PIP), you must have regard to the decision of the High Court in R v.
Sandwell MBC, ex parte Hardy. This decision places an obligation on LAs
to consider each DHP application on a case by case basis having regard
to the purpose of those disability related benefits and whether the money
from those benefits has been committed to other liabilities associated with
disability.
edit: I should add: it may well be that a DHP application doesn’t include budgeting for certain items of disability-related expenditure, simply because there is currently no income to fund them. When PIP becomes available, that might change. I don’t think a council can look at a balanced household budget and reasonably say “when the PIP comes through, your outgoings won’t increase at all, so we can count all the PIP as spare money”. Surely the whole application would need to be reassessed.
[ Edited: 8 Jun 2018 at 12:44 pm by Jon (CANY) ]Council Lady insists on seeing the legislation which states that PIP is intended for disability costs only and need not be considered as income for purposes of rent.
Well the starting point would be para 3.9 of the DHP Guidance Manual which states:
When deciding how to treat income from disability-related benefits such as Disability Living Allowance (DLA) or the Personal Independence Payment (PIP), you must have regard to the decision of the High Court in R v. Sandwell MBC, ex parte Hardy. This decision places an obligation on LAs to consider each DHP application on a case by case basis having regard to the purpose of those disability related benefits and whether the money from those benefits has been committed to other liabilities associated with disability.
Hardy was a judicial review in which the Council had disregarded the mobility component of DLA but not the care component. It was found variously that the Council had unlawfully fettered its discretion and adopted a discriminatory approach. (http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2015/890.html)
But that doesn’t mean that DLA/PIP is always ring-fenced in all cases (although I think there are Councils who take that stance, and its not an unusual position in debt recovery). It will probably assist you if you can either:
(a) demonstrate what extra expenses your client has which the PIP will be used to meet; or
(b) make an argument about why DHP is needed to mitigate the bedroom tax which would otherwise be discriminatory in her case
Remember that disability payments do not just cover regular weekly costs. It is possible to use them to save up to buy large items such as a better quality wheelchair, or for one-off expenditure that will be enhance the claimant’s life and counter the effects of the disability. I feel that Hardy should be interpreted more generously than the DWP guidance - it seems to me that whether the disability payments can be accounted for item by item, or not, they are clearly there for additional costs.
You might also want to highlight to them that in not having made a decision in three months, they’re very much outside of the guidelines on timeous decisions, see Ask CPAG:
The law requires local authorities (LAs) to give written notice of a decision following an application for a discretionary housing payment (DHP) with reasons for the decision ‘as soon as reasonably practicable’.1
Paragraph 3.14 of The DHP Guidance Manual and Good Practice Guide for LAs advises LAs as follows:
‘If someone applies for a DHP, you must inform that person of the DHP decision in writing with reasons as soon as is reasonably practicable. You must be consistent and avoid unnecessary delay, bearing in mind an application for DHPs is often to deal with an immediate need.’
Paragraph 4.8 of the Good Practice Guide states:
‘Claimants normally have to arrange their finances quickly and so you could ensure that decisions on DHP applications are made within four weeks’.