Example
Ms C, who had two children, one under 16 and one over, had applied for a crisis grant for food, gas and electricity. The applicant had recently been taken ill and had stopped work. She had made a new claim for ESA, but had a four day wait to receive an income and was without living expenses in the meantime.
The council’s original decision was to make an award to cover the four days from the date of the application to the applicant’s first ESA payment. Although the council noted the applicant had two children, they awarded for the applicant only, noting her Child Benefit (CB) and Child Tax Credits (CTC) were still in payment. The applicant attempted to make a new application two weeks later, stating that her ESA was in fact not paid until a week later than expected, and subsequently cancelled due to a medical assessment. She was prevented from making a new application and signposted to request a review of her original award. The first tier reviewer upheld the amount originally awarded.
Ms C applied for an independent review of the council’s decision. We agreed that at the point of application, the applicant faced a four day period of crisis. However, we disagreed that the council should have discounted the applicant's dependents when making the award. We noted that the applicant was not due to receive CB or CTC within that four day timeframe. We therefore assessed that the whole family were in a crisis for the four day period and that an award should reflect this (7.24 of the guidance). However, we also noted that as the applicant only received CB for her younger child, something that she planned to appeal. However, as her older child studied at a level defined as 'advanced education' we assessed there was no underlying entitlement to this benefit, and therefore that the older child was not classed as a dependent (7.25 of the guidance). We instructed the council make an additional award for one dependent for four days, to the amount of £38.23. We also recorded findings relating to the council’s written communication, and were critical that the applicant was prevented from making a new application when there had been an apparent change of circumstances.