Council tax benefit will ask for his last 5 weeks or 2 months payslips. Tax Credit does take into account the amount worked out over the year but again, it's still worth applying if his income is low. I always say to people that all you can lose by applying is a few minutes of your time completing the forms. In respect if his reduced ability to care for himself, he may be eligible for disability living allowance - this has nothing to do with earnings, people can get it in or out of work if they meet the qualifying criteria. I'd strongly urge you to advise him to visit a welfare rights office or CAB to request a full benefit check. They will also assist him in completing any forms.

Sounds like he's on company sick pay...one of these schemes where it's full pay for a period of time, then half pay, then SSP. In addition to tax credit, he may wish to submit a claim for council tax benefit; this is means tested, so whether he is eligible will depend on his income/capital. It would also be worth speaking to his mortgage provider, to establish if there is anything that they can do to take the pressure off such as a mortgage holiday for example. If he has internet access, he can visit http://www.entitledto.com and input his details. It will generate a result of what he may be able to claim based on the data he inputs. Failing that, we'd need a lot more information before we could say for certain what he would qualify for.

Thanks for this

Don't be; it is quite often the case that certain aspects of the work are migrated or temporarily transferred to other offices depending on estates and workloads.

That's it sorted now, sequenci - my apologies, I must have mistyped the link

There was talk of this happening earlier on in the year. A memo has now been released to DWP staff and I've been able to obtain a copy which is in the attachment. The gist of it is that from 1st October, there is to be a civil penalty at the set amount of £50 applied to all DWP overpayments where the claimant is at fault. Local authorities can also apply the penalty for HB/CTB overpayments. The relevant legislation which comes into force on 1st October 2012 can be linked to by clicking here

That's in Northern Ireland.

I bow down to id6052 here - I know no better on this one.

Some passported benefits require only underlying entitlement to a benefit. Some require the person to be in receipt of the benefit. To be eligible for the CCG or the BL, the person must be in receipt of an income related benefit payable by the DWP. Underlying entitlement does not cover eligibility. It is true that a person can be in receipt of both CB and IR ESA simultaneously (and CB or IB JSA) - however this is only the case where the contributory element of the claim is insufficient for the amount the law says a person needs to live on. For example, if a couple were to claim JSA, him having sufficient contributions to qualify for CB JSA but his partner having no contributions, and no other income or capital, the contributory part of the claim would be £71 per week and the IB part of the claim would be £40.45 per week. They would be in receipt of IB JSA and thus eligible to claim a CCG. If however a person was claiming JSA as a single person and was receiving CB JSA at £71 per week with no other income/capital he would have underlying entitlement to IB JSA however he would not be in receipt of IB JSA thus would not be eligible for a CCG. For a BL the person must have been receiving a qualifying benefit for 26 weeks or more. There is no such timescale for a CCG, a person can claim no matter how long they have been receiving a qualifying benefit and in the case of prisoners being released into the community, they do not need to be in receipt but likely to be in receipt within 6 weeks.

Where is the cover letter from. PM me the address if you prefer it that way. I'll check it out tomorrow for you.

My advice would be if he needs it now and should be entitled to it now, then claim it now.

What is the reason that ESA have given for the overpayment?

The work related group requires you to take part in work related activity. It cannot force you to take up a job and must take into account the health issues for which you have been awarded ESA.

Yes, it's not the easiest site to search. The info is all over the place, some of it is out of date - typical government run website really!! I much prefer the databases I use, the info is much easier to find with a few key words.

45002, Sorry I did not get back to you sooner, I was at after school activities with my children. I see that id6052 has very kindly provided information which answers your question. I am happy to provide direct links wherever possible however on this occasion, I am unable to link directly because the source I use is a legal database that is for legal professionals/academics and requires a paid subscription fee. As a fee charging website, I am forbidden by the forum rules to provide it. However the information provided by id6052 will also enable you to perform your own search for publicly accessible websites, should you wish to do so. A site that you may find useful for Acts or Parliament is http://www.legislation.gov.uk. This site is free and publicly accessible but do bear in mind that it is not always up to date and doesn't always consolidate changes in the law.

The relevant Act is the Social Security Fraud Act. It does not allow any Tom, Dick or Harry to access someone's bank account but commands that banks must share information with Authorised Officers (in certain circumstances). If you submit a claim to the DWP, the person who processes your claim has no access to your bank account information without you providing it to them; a benefit processor will never be given access to your accounts nor the authorisation to demand that the bank provide it, to allow this level of access to processing staff would be a huge security risk. If a fraud investigation is underway however, they can use an authorised officer to obtain the information from your bank, as Jabba outlined earlier, no court order is required.

Hi Grace. The timeline in your post doesn't make sense. If he only claimed in August of this year, it would be near to impossible for an investigation to have taken place, for the legal department to consider the investigative findings and to summon him to court all within the space of a month. In order to try and help you could you please answer the following questions: 1. What benefit did your husband claim and when? 2. What exactly does the letter say? Please type it out or scan a copy in (remove personal details) We may need to ask more questions of you as we go on but for the moment, this is what we need to know.

You do not have to pay for the translation of documents. They have a service that they use which is dedicated to the translation of documents. If there is a problem in getting the documents to them within the deadline (and there may well be, given that it's all overseas), get in touch and let them know so that they don't stop payment for non response.

Child maintenance calculator

'Old' cases (referred to as CSA1) are cases which were active before 3rd March 2003. New cases (CSA2) are after that date.

Hi. I'm afraid that this is one of those cases where there isn't anything that you can do to enforce your local authority to pay a disabled child premium. The relevant law dictates that such a premium is dependent on that child being in receipt of Disability Living Allowance. There are exceptions for children who would have been in receipt of DLA but are in hospital, children who are blind or in some cases where the child has recently died and the premium is effectively a 'run on'. You can ask them to backdate a disabled child premium if it is awarded at a later date but you cannot insist that they pay it in anticipation of a decision. You can apply for a discretionary housing payment. The guide that Local Authorities use when considering a DHP is contained here in the CAG library. It would be useful to have a good read and select the parts that you think would assist in your application.

Just a quick response, sja75. I can't see how it could be possible to enforce attendance at AA meetings, to be honest. In order to be sure you were attending, the provider would surely want to check with AA, and AA won't tell them. As an organisation, they defend their 'anon' policy fiercely and their meetings are shrouded in secrecy. They do have open meetings on occasion but these are pre-arranged usually so that members have the option of not attending where non members may be present. They only use first names, the sharing of surnames and other personal information is not encouraged and though members may choose to share this information in meetings, it is agreed among members that this information is not to be taken out of the meeting. They do not keep records of attendance or retain files on their members whatsoever. They are not allowed to badger members if they choose to stop coming to meetings. I know that AA welcome professionals urging their clients/patients to contact the AA but they don't take referrals; the organisation must ring AA's main contact centre then hand the client/patient the phone. AA will then arrange independently with the client/patient to meet a member who will take them to an AA meeting. AA would not entertain forced attendance in my opinion, it makes a mockery of the principles contained in the 12 steps. AA strongly believe that a person is a member 'if and when the member says so.' In view of their protection of their members (anonymity being the foundation of their organisation) I'm not sure how it could be proven that you had attended any meetings if the provider so required it. That does not strictly answer your question but it does give you something as a starting point to look into yourself. You could ring AA on 0845 769 7555 and ask them if they would participate with work programme providers in enforcing someone to attend meetings when they do not wish to. You would not need to give your name - though they may ask for a first name so they have something to call you during the conversation. You could even give them a pseudonym. I guarantee their answer will be no, they would not encourage forced participation. Or you could spend some time looking at their website, I'm sure the answer will be on there somewhere. It won't directly say they won't work with providers but will say something along the lines I've mentioned no doubt about people themselves deciding to become members when they decide that they want to. Their website is http://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk/index.cfm

If you haven't claimed IS then it must be Pension Credit that is processing the payment; IS and PC are the only claims that can be put onto the ISCS. That doesn't tell you what benefit it is because sometimes if more than one benefit is in payment, it is one department that will deal with the payment for both. For example when IB was active, a person could have IB with an IS top up. Sometimes both the payment for IB and IS was paid by IS so it came from ISCS (the income support computer system) but each department still held control over each claim.

Yes, and Pension Credit uses the Income Support Computer System to process claims and payments. Seen it on numerous SARs. If it's an official error then it is not recoverable. Some DWP payments are recoverable as a result of official error but Pension Credit and Income Support are not. If it shows ISCS then it will always be IS or PC