Starting a claim with no appointee?

elsien

Afternoon all. Person in care home, no involved family, lacks capacity around finances. Social worker involved. Local corporate appointee provider will only take over existing claims and not start new ones.
Care home started the claim on the person's behalf for pension credit (complicated background as to why no state pension) but DWP have rejected as they say claim needs to be made by family member or social worker.  Plan was for care home to pass over to appointee once claim started. 
Social worker saying they are not allowed to.
Is there not a system for someone just filling in the initial paperwork then immediately passing over to the DWP/appointee service to take it from there? 
Any guidance appreciated, particularly if there's anything written that might help. 

8dayweek

The social worker should be able to refer to the section within their own LA who deal with Corporate Appointeeships for those lacking capacity. 

DWP are correct - the individual social worker would not be the appointee, nor is it generally appropriate for care home staff or floating support workers etc. 

8dayweek

And care home staff etc should be pushing back to the social worker if there is currently no income whatsoever etc. 

elsien

8dayweek said:

The social worker should be able to refer to the section within their own LA who deal with Corporate Appointeeships for those lacking capacity. 

DWP are correct - the individual social worker would not be the appointee, nor is it generally appropriate for care home staff or floating support workers etc. 

The local authority doesn’t have a section that deals with corporate appointeeships. It is contracted out to another organisation who say that the starting of claims does not form part of their contract. This is an ongoing issue with the local authority which they have failed to address.

The care home is perfectly well aware that they are not appropriate to be the appointee, and they don’t want to be. They just wanted to start the claim and hand it over.

Hence my question about who can start a claim if there is no one obvious. 

And FWIW care homes never push back to the local authority. Ever. In this case, the person is getting a very small allowance from the local authority, but it’s only a few pounds a week. 

8dayweek

Hmmm that’s odd. I would suggest that either…

Social Worker refers to the Welfare Rights dept. to arrange starting the claim. Welfare Rights would likely call Pension Credit / AA etc and request a paper application form and then obtain a BF56 from the company the LA sub out the Corporate Appointee stuff to. Welfare Rights etc should complete the application and post it back to DWP with the BF56 - then DWP process it and send the Corporate Appointee a B57 and all correspondence relating to the benefit etc. 

Or…

Social Worker refers to Welfare Rights dept. who refer to DWP Visits to go out and make the claim with the individual and address the Appointee action. 

I’ve never heard of a Corporate Appointee that wouldn’t start a DWP benefit claim, only take them over? Is there more to it? Will they only start the DWP benefit claim when they have the full - say - financial assessment from the Social Worker? 

8dayweek

Is there any hint of an issue regarding Recourse to Public Funds or Immigration Status etc…? 

8dayweek

(As you mention no State Pension)

elsien

8dayweek said:

Is there any hint of an issue regarding Recourse to Public Funds or Immigration Status etc…? 

There was, It now resolved, hence the claim.
The local authority does not have a welfare rights department.  The DWP did go out and visit the person and that was when the claim was rejected. 

There is nothing more to it other than that for whatever reason it’s not in the other organisations contract to start a claim and so they don’t. Nothing to do with the financial assessment. It’s just a loophole that no-one seems prepared to do anything about.

8dayweek

Interesting. As in, they refused to take the claim full stop (as in the person lacks sufficient capacity to be able to answer the questions on the form) or the claim was taken, processed and then rejected? 

I’ve PM’d you. 

8dayweek

Also, the LA sounds like it is slacking. Surely this falls under their statutory obligations - and if their normal “provider” for corporate appointees isn’t able to service the needs of this person they should be looking to find (and fund) an alternative that does surely?!