urgent advice needed.

honey10

any news today?

casseus

honey10 wrote: »

any news today?

well todate not much, she still has no money ive been paid but now most if not all gone, spent 50 in eleky 30 in gas and as she's used the emergency so often and debt hasnt been paid for 4 weeks it swallowed most if not all up, my parents have provided food pack and suppa's for them to eat.

and when things couldnt get worse they did when her washing machine packed in and covered the whole floor in water, lucky enough its under extended cover so a phone call should put it right in a few days.

child benefit sent her a letter saying that they are aware of the children living with her and should claim child benefit!?? :think: and had a claim pack with it! and my old child ben number on, when she called and queried as to say hey look youve sent this letter please explain, she was told it was sent in error and should of been addressed to me, and that she should call back monday as that will be the 21 days limit from her original forms. PEE UP IN BREWERY rings to mind.

social services hasnt been back to her at all for about a week and without her being able to call anyone cant ring to find out if they can help further.

will update you all tomorrow.

cassieB57

can you write a letter for Income Support to confirm you have relinquished CHB? I believe she can then get IS as nobody would be getting the CHB, as she will presumably have made a claim, and the children are living with her? It's all tied up with IS law about who can get IS-ie a lone parent is the one who is responsible for a child under ten, AND who gets the CHB-or if nobody does, when a claim has been made. She could then ask for an interim or emergency payment as she can prove hardship

casseus

cassieB57 wrote: »

can you write a letter for Income Support to confirm you have relinquished CHB? I believe she can then get IS as nobody would be getting the CHB, as she will presumably have made a claim, and the children are living with her? It's all tied up with IS law about who can get IS-ie a lone parent is the one who is responsible for a child under ten, AND who gets the CHB-or if nobody does, when a claim has been made. She could then ask for an interim or emergency payment as she can prove hardship

IS have blatantly told her many times and her MP and SOCIAL SERVICES that they will not give her interim payments or emergency payments due to NOT RECIEVING child benefit. i have trawled the internet looking for the "link" between IS and CHB but cannot find anything this is whats so frustrating they know she has three children to support, they know she has submitted a claim to CHB but keep saying untill the claim is running they cant do anything to help her. OR RATHER WONT DO ANYTHING TO HELP HER.

IMHO in cases like this that halt an entitlement to a benefit that would be likely to cause hardship to a lone parent "if" theres a link the CHB 21day processing rule should not apply and cases like my ex's should be dealt with as a matter of urgency and efficiency.

casseus

ok so heres a little update. ex called me in tears saying the child ben still hasnt processed her claim, apperently a recent change in legislation for lone parents to recieve income support they MUST be in reciept of child benefit according to IS who informed her of this today, i have called the childrens commissioner for wales to see if they can help my ex- who arent too happy with this situation are going to liase with social services.
my ex called the mp's secretary who is in the middle of contacting all relavant parties to acertain what is going with the benefits.
i also contacted SHELTER and their benefits lawyer is going to contact me shortly to see if he can also intervien with the situation.

everyone seems to be banging their heads against brick walls with the benefits agency, so next im going to involve the press.

RAS

I know you had some money/food from the SS. Have you contacted either the food banks or Sally Army re food parcels?

cassieB57

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/dmgch22.pdf

not sure if this link will work, but in the Decision Makers guide, where it gives the meaning of 'responsibility for a child' it specifically states in paragraph 22032, that the responsible person is
1. The person recieving the child benefit, or 3. Where child Benefit is not in payment and only 1 person has made a claim, the person who has made that claim, or in any other case, the person who the child normally lives with...ie if you have given up the CHB and it is no longer being paid to you, and she has made a claim and the child(ren) lives with her, she is eligible for IS as a lone parent, if at least one of the children is under 10 (from 25/10/10 the age limit drops to 7 yrs).
This may have to go to a 'complex decision maker' at the delivery centre to agree, but the regulations do allow for the parent with whom the child normally lives to claim when CHB is not yet in payment to him/her. All they should need is proof it isnt in payment to anyone else-in this case, you

cassieB57

I would also recommend that she makes a formal, written complaint about the service she has received. This can, but doesnt have to be on a JCP 'tell us what you think' form, and should set out the sequence of events, and details of what she has been told and when. This will have NO bearing on the outcome of her claim, and if you ask the jobcentre they must tell you the name/address of the district office to send it to.This will be investigated and there is nothing like a letter from district asking for a complaint to be dealt with, to move things along (IME). There may be a case for her going to one of her local MP's surgeries; an MP's letter always goes to the head of the queue. Check out the DWP customer charter:
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/about-dwp/customer-delivery

casseus

cassieB57 wrote: »

I would also recommend that she makes a formal, written complaint about the service she has received. This can, but doesnt have to be on a JCP 'tell us what you think' form, and should set out the sequence of events, and details of what she has been told and when. This will have NO bearing on the outcome of her claim, and if you ask the jobcentre they must tell you the name/address of the district office to send it to.This will be investigated and there is nothing like a letter from district asking for a complaint to be dealt with, to move things along (IME). There may be a case for her going to one of her local MP's surgeries; an MP's letter always goes to the head of the queue. Check out the DWP customer charter:
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/about-dwp/customer-delivery

you hit the nail right on the head. i spoke to the shelter lawyer who explained the link also and he has recomended a formal complaint he is meeting with ex tommorrow to go through this with her.

my ex explained that neither of us were in reciept and that i had relinquished weeks ago but fell on def ears repeatedly and again they told her same this morning after her explaining.

in the end i asked my ex to come down to mine/mums to call IS.
when she called them 4:55pm she explained again and said that i was available to confirm over the phone, the fella on the other end told her that he would not speak to me under any curcumstances, she said to him that she gives me permission to talk with him but he still wouldnt let her pass me on the phone so i took the phone off ex, and i listened to him saying quite rudely that he wasnt interested in talking to me, so i said look this has gone on long enough you have caused hardship to my children I RELINQUISHED THE BENEFIT WEEKS AGO and if you had done the SIMPLE TASK of checking that youd know and award ex her money, i told him IS knows she isnt in reciept of child benefit and they have already confirmed that forms to claim have been sent to income support he then agreed that if we are not in reciept of it then an award has to me made i then passed my ex back on to him who changed his attitude towards her, saying that he will email this information to a DM he then took some of her details then he to speak to me to confirm that he could use my NINO in the email for the dm to check that i aint in reciept of it i said yes the can use it to cross refrence if they want but for only that purpose. as was so late no one could call back so will find out tommorrow whether i made a difference.

i also said in my forcefull convorsation that this situation has caused undue stress and hardship, that they have blatantly ignored MP and Social services input to them regarding the child benefit situation.
his tune changed quite a bit after that and was willing to hear me out!

cassieB57

well I hope she gets something sorted out soon-hope I've helped even if only a little. It makes me so mad when people like those dealing with her claim act like this-it gives the other hard working helpful and dare I say 'normal' people who work in JCP a bad name and only goes to contribute towards the overall hostility the general public have towards them. In fairness, the training they seem to give these days is so minimal I am not surprised they don't seem to know what they are doing, and are under a lot of stress to meet certain targets so I can understand the problem, however rudeness and insensitivity are just out of order and nobody deserves to be treated like this (well the majority of customers don't)