[2023] UKUT 193 (AAC)

Before I move to the substance of this appeal, I feel obliged to comment on the final sentence in the letter that Gravesham sent the claimant on 29 November 2017: see paragraph 26 above.

Housing benefit became subject to the general social security rules on decision-making and appeals on 1 July 2001: more than 16 years before Gravesham’s letter was sent. Since that date, a claim for housing benefit ceases to exist when it is decided: see paragraph 2 of Schedule 7 to the Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Act 2000. Therefore the claimant’s claim ceased to exist when the decision was made to award him housing benefit with effect from Monday 8 August 2016. Gravesham should have known that.

For that reason, Gravesham had no power to treat the claim as no longer valid or not to process it. It was quite wrong for them to have threatened to do so.

Far worse, however, is that the letter only gave the claimant 14 days to provide the information requested. That time limit does not appear in any relevant regulation. For the reasons I gave in DTM v Kettering Borough Council (CTB) [2013] UKUT 625 (AAC), (Footnote: ¹) the Regulations allow claimants who are required to provide information or evidence a minimum period of one month within which to do so: see paragraphs 24-39 of DTM. The 14-day limit in Gravesham’s letter has been plucked from the air, either by Gravesham themselves or by the company that provides their computer software.

Gravesham’s threat to visit adverse consequences on the claimant if he did not respond within 14 days—less than half the minimum period allowed by the law—was therefore without legal foundation and improper. Although the point is one for the Local Government Ombudsman, not me, I tend towards the view that it amounted to maladministration. It is particularly unfortunate that Gravesham was continuing to issue such threats—apparently in standard letters—nearly four years after the promulgation of the decision in DTM. I hope that it has now ceased to do so.