I am grateful to Tracy Williams of Roper James Solicitors for raising this matter with me, and for her assistance.
Before the introduction of Universal Credit, when settling a personal injury claim, a Compensation Recovery unit (CRU) certificate was obtained setting out the State Benefits which the Claimant had received, between which dates and the amount.
The certificate broke down monies paid for each individual benefit such as Income Support, Housing Benefit and so on.
Out of the total paid, the only benefits required to be recouped are those that are like for like; if damages were received in respect of a loss of earnings claim, then any payments made in respect of income support during the material time would be recouped.
If benefits were received for other matters, where no claim or head of damage had been advanced, then there was no liability to repay these, as they had no bearing on the amount of damages recovered and the idea was to prevent the Claimant having double recovery
Since the introduction of Universal Credit, the individual benefits are not broken down, other than additionally setting out receipts for Personal Independence Payments – Living and Mobility.
Accordingly, it is impossible to do a like for like recoupment and damages may be recouped to repay child benefit or housing benefit which were never claimed in the personal injury action, which was never the intention of the rule against double recovery.
A solicitor has sent me details of a case, and has given me permission to use the redacted documents.
In this particular case, the loss of earnings advanced is in the region of £60,000 but as you will note from the attached anonymised CRU certificate the amount that will be recouped in respect to Universal Credit will be £80,404.79 (we have no issue with PIPL and PIPM recoupment) which means the Claimant will lose in the region of £20,000 from his damages.
This anomaly, will surely make it difficult for any Trial Judge to award damages and likewise it is making it nigh on impossible to enter into settlement negotiations as the Defendant has to rely on the total of the certificate
We have requested revised CRU certificates showing a breakdown of the Universal Credit element when this has been raised by the Claimant but to date the DWP have not provided a revised CRU certificate or indeed any response at all.
To muddy the waters further, Universal Credit payments can change from month to month depending on the claimant’s income at the time.
I would welcome any comments or information from other lawyers who have encountered the same problem.
