DWP failure to offer a newly recognised refugee an advance UC payment

Use this letter if all of the following apply. Your client:

• has been granted refugee (or another analogous) status
• has been allocated a national insurance number
• is awaiting the determination of, or first payment of their UC
• is in financial need
• has not been offered a UC advance

This letter assumes (so can be edited):

• your client has been granted refugee (rather than an analogous) status

The main legal arguments in this template are:

DWP guidance Refugees and Asylum Seekers specifically provides “A refugee must be offered an advance payment when making a new claim”.

The claimant meets the conditions in reg. 5 of the Social Security (Payments on Account of Benefit) Regulations 2013 in that the conditions of entitlement for benefit are satisfied, they are in financial need, they have been allocated a National Insurance Number, and have made a claim for benefit but their claim has not yet been determined. The claimant is/was therefore unequivocally entitled to a ‘payment on account of benefit’.

DWP’s failure to offer an advance to the claimant who is a refugee is in breach of DWP’s guidance and is discriminatory contrary to Article 14 ECHR with Article 1 Protocol 1.

Information about your client (and their family):

• name
• address
• national insurance number
• date of birth

Background facts, such as:

• family details
• any disabilities or vulnerabilities in the household
• where your client is from, the date your client applied for asylum in the UK, and the date asylum was granted
• amount of s.95 support received and when it ended
• housing/homelessness details
• what financial hardship your client is experiencing as a result of the refusal, details of any rent arrears and any risk to their tenancy
  • any risk that your client will be unable to afford to pay for their housing, heating or food, any need to use food banks
  • any detriment to your client's health and welfare or to any of their family members' health and welfare

Information about the decision:

• how and when your client asked for an advance
• how and when DWP refused the advance (and quotes from your client's UC journal if possible)
• dates of all relevant contacts and decisions

We've created this guide to help you successfully use our judicial review pre-action letter templates: Guide to using CPAG's judicial review pre-action letter templates

Once you've finished your letter, please email it to us at: [email protected] before you send it to the lawyers acting for DWP/HMRC/your local authority. We'll try to reply as quickly as possible and will do so within 7 days.