Shared Lives Plus helps family challenge payment decision

The person, who has lived with their Shared Lives carers since 2009, was notified in October 2018 that they would not receive SDP because they lived with their appointee – their Shared Lives carer. To be entitled to SDP, a person must usually live alone and not with any non-dependents. But this was successfully challenged in September 2019 on the basis that they were living together under a Shared Lives arrangement, for which there is an exemption in the rules about living with someone when claiming for SDP.

However, the September 2019 ruling also stated that, for a period of time between October 2018 and July 2019, the Shared Lives carer’s 24-year-old daughter was also living in the household and was classed as a non-dependent, and so for that time period the person supported in Shared Lives was not entitled to SDP.

But with support from the legal advisers with specialist expertise in Shared Lives arrangements which all Shared Lives Plus members have access to, the Shared Lives family again appealed the decision, on the basis that under the Employment Support Allowance Regulations 2008, 7 1 (1) the Shared Lives carer’s daughter should not actually count as a non-dependent.

After a preliminary hearing in which the Judge accepted this argument, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has agreed that the person should receive SDP for the contested period. The DWP has now updated its decision-making guide for similar situations. A similar case in Derbyshire, in which the Shared lives scheme also argued that the family member of the Shared Lives carers in question was not a non-dependent, was also resolved successfully on this basis.

If someone you support has either had their claim to SDP denied or halted for a period of time because a family member also lives with you, you should be able to challenge this decision and receive payment of SDP.

We believe that, because the DWP’s decision-making guide has been updated, there should be no more cases of SDP being denied to claimants in Shared Lives because they’re also living with someone in their Shared Lives carer’s family. However, if the person you support has had their claim to SDP denied in these circumstances, then please get in touch with our membership team and find out about the legal support you can access through us.

Relevant pieces of law for this case are:

• Regulation 71 (1) of the Employment Support Allowance regulations 2014 states that a non-dependant is “any person except someone to whom paragraphs (2), (3), or (4) applies, who normally resides with a claimant or with whom a claimant normally resides”
• The daughter of the Shared Lives carer in this case fell under paragraph three, which exempts someone from being a non-dependent, so long as it applies to; “a person, other than a close relative of the claimant… (b) to whom the claimant is liable to make payments on a commercial basis in respect of the claimant’s occupation of that person’s dwelling… (c) who is a member of the household of a person to whom sub-paragraph (a) or (b) applies.”

So, because the person supported in Shared Lives makes payments to the Shared Lives carer, the latter comes under Regulation 71(3)(b) (as the person supported is “liable to make payments on a commercial basis” for the “occupation” of the home). As the Shared Lives carer’s daughter was a ‘member of the household’, she would therefore fall under Regulation 71(3)(c).