ESA Income Related Self employed partner

Hi

My partner is in receipt of ESA support group and receives IR ESA as part of her benefits. I am her main carer and in receipt of CA. I am also self employed and have a little income from this. I have been self employed and declaring such since 2015. Each year in January my partner receives a form requesting information relating to my income from my self employment. This seems to be a standard form for people who are PAYE as it asks for my last 12 weeks payslips etc.Each time I have received this form I have provided the ESA with the most upto date accounts that I can. This usually covers a 40 week period from April the previous year to January/February depending when my partner receives the request. I also always enclose a covering letter explaing that my business year runs from April-April and that the information I am providing only covers part of my business year and if any calculations are to be made from this then it should be worked out accordingly i.e. a 40 week period. Sometimes the ESA have used the figures provided and proportion of the business year to calculate my income, sometimes they have waited until April and the re sent the same form which I then complete and return to them. ESA would then use these figures to calculate how much IR ESA my partner is entitled to and adjust it accordingly.

In January 2017 my partner received the usual form and I subsequently returned it to the ESA (unfortunately I dedn't think to send it registered and so have no proof of posting). We heard nothing and assumed that they would be back in touch in April. My partner phoned them at the end of April to query why we had not been contacted and was told that it was 'being processed' and if any fruther information was required they would be in touch.

Nothing came and in the meantime we had a PIPS application to complete (many thanks to all on here again) and we simply forgot about it. This January (2018) my partner received the usual form which again I filled in and returned to them with an upto date account for April 2017-February 2018 and also included a full account for the period April 2016- April 2017 (ESA didnt request this I put it in as I realised that they had never asked for it). This time the ESA did get back in touch in April and I sent my complete accounts for 2017-18. Again my partner phoned them in June and was informed that it was 'being processed'. Yesterday my partner received an unexpected payment from the DWP. On phoning to ask why, she was informed that it was a backdated payment arising from a change in my earnings. It turns out that we have been underpaid for the period April 17 - April 18 and also from April this year to date. The person at the call centre was very hel[ful and looked back at our claim and noticed that the figures he had for underpayment and the total we received did not match up.

For the period Aprill 17- April 18 my partner had been underpaid £8.87 pw for her IR ESA and for the period April 18 to date she had been underpaid £4.34 pw. She received a payment of £225.80 a short fall of around £300 or so. The person at the call centre advised us to make an application to have the decision reviewed and have a decsion maker call us which we did.

This underpayment was because for the period of 2015 - 2016 I had earned above the £20 pw disregard (I earned £28.87 pw) and my partners IR ESA had been reduced accordingly for the period 2016 - 2017. This had carried on throughout 2017 - 2018 and 2018 to date even though I had earned under the £20 disregard for 2016-17.

We received a call from the DWP this morning, it was not a decision maker but someone working in the telephony department. She informed us that the decision maker had informed her that the backdated payment had been calculated from 9th February 2018 as this is when they had first received any information relating to my income for the period April 2016 - April 2017 and so the underpayment from April 2017 - February 2018 was being disregarded.. I informed her that I had sent information relating to my income to them in January 2017 and my partner had subsequently spoken to someone on the phone about it in April 2017. The person at the DWP informed us that there was nothing on the computer system to corroborate this and so as far as they were concerend the first they had received any information regarding my income for that period was February this year. She advised us that all we could do was ask for a mandatory reconsideration and that the decision maker would then phone us to discuss the matter with us directly. We have asked for this and are awaiting the call.

As said I have no proof of postage for the information I sent to them in January 2017. I do have copies of the letter and the Income and Expenditure account that I sent but no way of proving it was sent and received. As said my partner did phone them about this in April last year and she did receive a letter relating to that but all it contained was a breakdown of her ESA at that time and makes no mention of anything 'being processed'. I have a feeling that the ESA are going to simply say that as I cant provide proof of posting then there is nothing they can do.

It seems odd to me that if the ESA had written asking for proof of income in January 2017 and I had not responded to this that they would keep paying the benefit in question. In my experience this would usually result in at least another letter asking for the information and more than likely a suspension of benefits until the information had been received and processed.

I was wondering if there is any advice anyone can give with regards to how to proceed with this situation?

many thanks

Yes sorry for the length of post it's a bit complicated!

Yes the documents that have been lost are related solely to the shortfall. That would be from April 2017 - Feb 2018.

The IR Esa received for that period was reduced by £8.87 which was a continuation of the previous years IR which had been calculatedly correctly for the period Apr 2016 - Apr 2017.

I sent the ESA incomplete accounts at the end of January 2017. This covered the period Apr 2016 - Feb 2017.it is these accounts that are lost

Usually, but not always the ESA would contact me again in April for a full Income & Expenditure.

ESA never asked for any further information until January this year. I sent them a full Income & Expenditure for 2016-2017 & and incomplete accounts for 2017-2018

Technically I've never been asked to provide any of the above infirmation. Any requests I receive are as a form where the questions are for people in PAYE employment and asks for the last 12 week payslips which as I'm Self Employed I don't have.

So they are in possession of the list information and have been since February this year. They don't seem to be disputing that there has been an underpayment just that they weren't in possession of that information until then. The only time they have asked for the information was January 2017 which I provided as best as I could as an incomplete Income & Expenditure. They've never sent a request for the full year (2016-2017)

You say to request an Mr via a template letter. Is that the only way to request an MR? The person I spoke to this morning seemed to suggest that she would be doing that to get the decision maker to phone us

Gordon,

Thanks for the advice.

I received a call from ESA today, unfortunately not the DM but the person I spoke to in telephony yesterday. She pretty much advised the same.

ESA maintain that they first received the relevant information in February this year. She also confirmed that they have no record of receiving the information in January last year. She further stated that they have no record of my partner telephoning to query the situation last year. We do have a letter confirming that my partner telephoned. She suggested to include this. She also suggested to stress that they had never sent any reminders requesting the information again. I'll be sending them as much as I can and hoping for the best.

Many thanks

Craig