Data on income support claims and Breach 3 notices (FOI)

​​​Request

A.

Out of the total number of income support claims closed after the issue of a Breach 3 notice between 15th October 2013 and 31st December 2014 (asked for in (1) of FOI Request [reference and date redacted] and still outstanding as at this date), how many claimants to whom a Breach 3 notice was directly issued resulting in their claim being closed had not yet recommenced receiving income support payments from the Department:

• 8 weeks after the applied breach date?
• 16 weeks after the applied breach date?
• 20 weeks or longer after the applied breach date?

To be clear, I am not asking for the period between the applied breach date and the date when the claimant’s new claim was first opened on the system to enable the income support reapplication process to begin, nor to the date when the Department agreed to back pay the claimant – I am instead asking for the actual length of time that each Breach 3 recipient had to wait between the last payment received before the breach was applied and the next date when payments eventually recommenced. If the Department already records such data but in slightly different time periods to the ones I have requested, then the Department’s alternative time periods may be acceptable provided they do not differ substantially from the ones requested.

B.

Please also clarify whether or not the statistics supplied in response to (1) above – the 8 week period – include or exclude the 16 known occasions where the Department reversed its decision to issue a Breach 3 notice at or before the reconsideration stage (figures previously supplied by the Department in response to FOI request [reference redacted] )

Response

A.

The timescales between a claim being closed and a new claim being re-opened are detailed below:

B.

Yes, the details above includes any claim closed but reopened due to new information received or redetermination.