income support and child benefit

Good afternoon - hope someones brain is more awake than mine at this time of the day :)

We have recently been assisting a young person (aged 18) who was formerly looked after by the LA. He is still in relevant education and will stay with his former foster carers for the foreseeable future. It is usual in these circumstances for the YP to make a claim for income support as he is estranged from parents and anyone acting in place of.. former foster carers do not count as acting in place of.
This is normally fairly straight forward. However, in this case, our YP has been refused IS as it seems that there is someone claiming child benefit.

We have no idea who this is. Former foster carers are certainly not claiming, there is no family to speak of (except a distant relative who may have contact about once a year) and the YP never goes out without carer as he is very vulnerable. Of course, CB wont divulge who this is (data protection) but we assume (hope) that they will be investigating. The advise given by JC+ was to ask the carers to make a competing claim for CB to trigger an investigation! (why is this even necessary if someone has reported that YP is not living with the claimant -surely this would trigger an investigation anyway?). I am wary of this also because in doing this, the carers are saying they will take responsibility for the YP, and act in place of parents.

My suggestion to the social worker was to write to CB given dates YP became looked after, dates and addressess of placements etc so CB can investigate. However, this doesnt get the YP his IS.

Looking at the CB regs, it states that a 16-19 yrs old cannot count as a qualifying YP and atherefoere CB cannot be paid if he receive income support in his own right. Surely then , shouldnt income support pay and send notification through to CB to end claim.. This is a bit chicken and egg I guess?any help gratefully received

Only just seen this query so perhaps too little, too late, but…

I think you should appeal the IS refusal, if you have not already done so; AFAICR there is nothing in the IS regs that prevents him being entitled to IS solely due to the fact of the CHB claim.  They may of course use the CHB claim as evidence that he is not in one of the groups of people who can claim IS whilst in relevant eduction, and refuse for that reason, but it sounds as though you could provide plenty of evidence to contradict that.

As for HMRC needing a new CHB claim to trigger an investigation, whilst nothing would entirely surprise me about HMRCs systems, this seems unlikely as it would mean that a case where someone was claiming when no-one should be would not be investigated.

Thank you for your help. (sorry for delay in response - I have not been in the office for a while). I am still waiting for the social worker to get back to me with an update - but I assist will an appeal as you suggest.

Thanks again