The claims process
Q. Where are claims for Housing Benefit (HB) and Council Tax Benefit (CTB) made?
A. Claims for HB/CTB are generally made to you (the local authority) in writing. Local authorities (LAs) also have the option to allow claims to be made electronically or verbally over the telephone if your authority has decided to offer those specific services.
Claimants can also apply for HB/CTB via the DWP through a combined claims process where they are also claiming Income Support (IS), Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) or Incapacity Benefit (IB) from Jobcentre Plus, or when applying for Pension Credit (PC) from the Pension, Disability and Carers Service.
Q. How are claims for HB and CTB made?
A. There are various methods of making a claim for HB/CTB direct to your LA depending on what claims processes you have chosen to offer. The one method you must offer is a clerical claim form, which is issued to the customer for completion and return to you.
You may offer a variety of services to assist the claimant in this area, including home visits, interviews or completion of the form over the telephone to be issued for checking, signing and return by the customer.
You may also offer electronic methods of claiming such as a web-based form on your website, or telephone claims to a designated telephone number. In both cases you may require the claimant to provide evidence and sign a statement confirming the facts provided to make this an effective claim.
For claims made via the DWP, the customer may choose to use the clerical forms process in completing one of the HCTB1 range of forms. But in most cases, claimants would take up the combined claims service offered by the DWP.
For IS/JSA/IB claims, this involves claimants answering questions over the telephone so that a customer statement (being the written claim for benefit) can be issued to be checked, signed and returned to Jobcentre Plus with the evidence requested on that form. The relevant HB/CTB details would then be forwarded on to your LA so that you can take action on the HB/CTB part of the claim.
For pensioners, the current process involves The Pension Service pre-populating a HB/CTB claim form and issuing this with any supplementary forms needed to be returned to the LA direct. From October 2008 (subject to the usual parliamentary processes), the claim will be taken over the telephone by Pension, Disability and Carers Service, and the relevant HB/CTB information passed directly to you with no need for any signature from the claimant. A supplementary form for rent/tenancy details will be issued to the claimant when required for completion and return directly to your LA.
Q. When is a claim defective or effective?
A. Usually a claim for HB/CTB is effective where the LA receive a fully completed claim form (or relevant information from the DWP) as well as all the information and evidence requested on that form. Where this is not the case, the claim would be defective (unless you consider the information to be sufficient in the circumstances of that particular case) and you would need to ask the claimant to take action to rectify the defect.
Q. Can we accept other LA claim forms?
A. Yes. Where you receive another local authority’s claim form, which contains all the information you would normally request on your own form, you may accept it as being an effective claim.
Q. Can we use different types of forms for different people?
A. Yes. In considering a claim you must collect all the information and evidence you need to decide that particular claim which will vary from case to case. Where a particular client group usually needs to supply less information, you may use shortened claim forms such as those the department issues for pensioners and Rapid Reclaims.
Q. Claim forms do not always allow us to collect all the information we need to decide a claim, what happens in those cases?
A. In designing any claims process it is important to consider the balance between the complexity for claimants and staff, the length of time for the completion of any claim form and associated processes and the need to gather all the information needed to decide the claim. While any claims process should cater for the majority of claimants and circumstances, there will always be occasions where trigger questions within the process lead to further information being needed before you can make a decision. In these cases you may ask the claimant to provide that further information.
Q. What happens if the claimant doesn’t supply further information requested?
A. In those cases, you should make a decision on the claim, based on a negative inference from the information not supplied. Any such negative inference must be reasonable and based on the information you already have available. For example: if the claimant had £10,000 in their bank account which they stated was not theirs, but failed to supply proof to back this up, you could infer that the £10,000 was available to them and decide the case accordingly. You should not, however, automatically infer that the claimant has over £16,000 based on this information alone and close the claim.
Q. When is a claim made?
A. A claim is actually made from the date that you receive a fully completed claim form - however provisions throughout the regulations provide that a claim can be treated as made from another date. For example: from the date an associated IS claim was awarded, where a claimant has rectified a defective claim within a month of being asked to do so, or from the date the claimant requested the claim form. Details of these rules can be found in the Housing Benefit Guidance Manual.
Q. Can we allow other council services to be claimed on our own HB/CTB claim form?
A. Yes. However, those services must be clearly optional for the claimant to choose to take-up. The receipt of and application to other LA services are not a condition of entitlement for receiving HB/CTB, so you cannot have a claims process that implies that they must take up these other services to receive HB/CTB. If you undertake this type of combined claim, you must also ensure that only information included on the form relevant to the other services is passed to the delivery arm, and that you do not retain information which is not relevant to HB/CTB administration.
Additionally if you intend for any further data sharing to occur between HB/CTB and other council/authority departments, you must include a section in your form allowing the claimant the choice about whether they agree to the data sharing taking place, which should note what information will be shared, why it will be shared and when it will be shared.
Q. Do we have to accept claim forms and claims information supplied by the DWP?
A. Yes. In these cases, the claimant has undertaken a lawful process in which to make their claim for HB/CTB and legislation requires you to accept evidence and information verified and used by the DWP.
From October 2008, customers who apply for Pension Credit can also apply for HB/CTB in one telephone call and will not have to complete or sign a claim form. This information will be forwarded directly to the LA via a Local Authority Claim Information (LACI) document after the Pension Credit application has been assessed. LAs must accept the information on the LACI and will only need to verify additional information not used or verified by The Pension Service. Where Pension Credit is disallowed the LACI will display which pieces of financial information have been verified by The Pension Service. The HB/CTB information captured during the telephone call will be sent to the customer on a Statement of Details. The customer will be instructed to report any errors or omissions direct to their local authority. You will then be able to amend the HB/CTB assessment accordingly.
Q. What happens if we received claims information from the DWP, but need the original claim for a court/appeal case?
A. Where you need the original claim details (whether a CMS statement or a record of the telephone call with the Pension Credit customer from October 2008), you can ask the DWP to provide this information, As this information contains details which are not needed for HB/CTB, you should only request it when the full original application is needed. In all other cases, you should only request the relevant pieces of information that you require.
Transfer of Housing Stock
Q. Our Local Authority is transferring some housing stock to the private sector. What will be the effect upon the payment frequency of housing benefit?
A. At the point the stock is transferred, any payments the council makes will become rent allowance rather than rent rebate. Each case will need to be considered with regard to Reg 92 of the HB (General Regulations 2006 which provides for the frequency of payments of rent allowance. Local Authorities are required to pay HB in arrears to private sector tenants who claim on or after the 7th October 1996. If direct payments are in place then payment must be made four weekly or monthly in arrears.
Claimants not covered by the transitional provisions (i.e.) who first occupied their dwelling on or after 7.10.96 or have had a break in entitlement since then, will therefore be subject to the provisions of regulation 92 – i.e. the rent allowance will be paid in arrears.
Q. Following a LSVT, to whom should payment of HB be made – the claimant or the landlord?
A. In rent rebate cases, payment of HB is simply credited against the claimants rent account. However, when housing stock is transferred to the private sector, HB is paid as rent allowance. Generally, rent allowance payments should be made direct to the person entitled (Reg 94 of the HB regs)
In some circumstances, it will be appropriate to pay rent allowance directly to the landlord under Reg 95/96. Local Authorities will need to look at each case individually and consider whether the provisions of Regs 95/96 apply. It is important that claimants are not put under pressure to have their rent paid direct – there must be a genuine choice presented.
Circumstances where the LAs must make direct payment (Reg 95)
- The tenant is in receipt of IS and has deductions from their benefit for rent arrears
- The tenant is eight weeks or more in arrears with their rent
Circumstances where the LAs can choose to make direct payments (Reg 96)
- The tenant consents, or requests this
- The LA are satisfied it is in the tenants best interest to make direct payments – if for example they have a history of rent arrears.
Additionally, in deciding whether to make direct payments, Local Authorities should give consideration as to whether a landlord is a fit and proper person to receive such payments.
