Where a claimant has failed to report a change in the past, and that change meant their benefit should have terminated, but a further change would have meant becoming entitled again, the 'closed period supersession' rule can protect them.
In CIS/2595/03 a decision was made in 1999 that the claimant was not entitled to benefit from September 1996 as he had started work, and therefore he had been overpaid more than £1015.000. The Judge (Commissioner) found that he had only worked for a few weeks, from 15 September to 18 October 1996 and had only been overpaid by just over £234. Unless the closed period supersession approach could be used to allow entitlement on the original claim to continue from October 1996, that claimant would have lost out on benefit from October 1996 to July 1999.
A4180
A decision awarding benefit may be superseded for a fixed period to take account of a disadvantageous change of circumstances which has already come to an end by the time it has come to the DM's attention. The supersession only replaces the original decision for that period.
A4181 The principle behind a closed period supersession relies on whether, at the end of the disallowance, the claimant would, in the absence of a new claim, be entitled to benefit. If there is no ongoing entitlement, a closed period supersession is not appropriate and the DM should make a "from and including" disallowance decision.
Example 1 A claimant is in receipt of JSA. Following a fraud investigation, it is established that he was working on a building site for over a year. The work finished when he was laid off. The DM supersedes the awarding decision to disallow JSA for the same period. The conditions of entitlement should be determined from the first day of the fresh period of entitlement.
Example 2 A claimant is in receipt of ESA. It is later discovered that she worked for a period of more than 12 weeks which she didn't report until a few months later. The DM determines that had a new claim been made when the claimant ceased work, the conditions of entitlement would not have been satisfied. This means that a closed period supersession would not be appropriate and ESA should be terminated from the frst day that the conditions of entitlement were no longer met.