suspending DLA after a prison sentence - advice needed

Hello all.

My client was released from Prison in 2016. He has severe mental health problems and soon drifted into homelessness. He had quite forgotten that he was getting DLA before he was imprisoned and that it had been suspended. We have managed to get the claim back into payment, but not backdated to 2016.

I realise that disability benefits as a new claim can never be backdated, but where a claim was suspended, is there any rule stating that it can be backdated to when a person was released from prison and would therefore be eligible? By definition of his disability he was not equipped to know he could simply call and get it reinstated.

I would like to at least explore options before just quitting on this, so any ideas or definitive rule that would strike it out would be extremely welcome.

It is only payment that is suspended, entitlement should continue.
If DLA has been reinstated as of today, this suggests entitlement continued throughout.
Have a look at Decision Makers Guide Chapter 12 (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/721749/dmgch12.pdf) for more detail and references.

In my experience, it is simply a case of evidencing the release date to enable arrears owed to be paid.

I think there may be an issue about the length of time from release to notifying the DWP of release - and therefore that the suspension should be lifted.

I had a couple of cases like this a few years ago related to hospital discharge) which were quite problematic although after a lot of argument (and in one case a tribunal) we got both backdated.  I seem to remember that I had to argue ‘good cause’ for the failure to notify DWP timeously, and in the one that didn’t go to tribunal we managed to obtain some evidence that DWP had been given sufficient notification of discharge to have put the benefit back into payment at an earlier stage.

Hello to you both

Thank you so much for your assistance with this, I would have been lost without your help

best wishes

danny

I think it arguable that the question of when he notified is irrelevant because a decision to put a benefit back into payment after a period of imprisonment is not a supersession decision (and so the rule that one must notify a positive change within a month of it occurring in order to have the increase from the date of change does not apply).

This came up in SSWP v Adams [2003] EWCA Civ 796 (reported as R(G)1/03).

There the issue was the overlapping benefit rules rendering a benefit non payable. However, it is similar with non payability due to care homes or prison in my view.

Worth a try anyway if they say he cannot get the PIP from when released.

Martin