Is it possible to be *overpaid* direct payments?

[Jimjams2]

My friend has told she's been overpaid for 2 years. Is this possible? What happens? Does she have to pay it back?

Over paid by who?

direct payments, so social services I guess. I think she hasn't had a care review for a couple of years, but surely that's their problem.

Hmmm if its anything like the tax credit debacle!!!! Once they review her, if they do decide they've overpaid they can demand she pay it back and I know they've been known to just randomly deduct amounts from people's bank accounts. I'd strongly advise she get some advice from somewhere like CAB as to where the responsibility lies and how she should proceed before she goes to the payments people about it.

Presumably it would come out of her direct payments account though, direct payments aren't means tested (and are officially her dd's I guess) so they can't really take it out of her own account.

actually this is where I get confused. Are dp's the child's or the parents. I get given dps in place of actitivities that would count as respite, but the care assessment etc was about ds1, not me.

They're capable of anything these days. I'd defo get some advice.

How on earth can they overpay when they're not means tested though. Bit concerned as she gets less than me!!!

It's finding someone who understands dps though. Half the SW don't!! I'll tell her to ring my lovely dp's support worker (she doesn't have one for some reason).

yes i'm sure it's possible. the people who do the assessment and decide the amount, are not the same people who arrange actually paying the money into the account. tbh, they're often in different depts, in different buildings, often do not know each other and have poor communication between them.
i would imagine an overpayment would most likely arise if the finance person has paid more than the assessed amount. the recipient of the payment (ie your friend) will have a copy of their careplan stating the assessed number of hours care, and a financial contract stating the number of hours in terms of funding. as they will have signed both documents they would have been expected to have noticed that the amounts were not the same and should have reported it asap.
i would v much expect it will have to be paid back as it will be seen as public money which has been incorrectly given and accepted. when a person accepts direct payments they are saying that they are 'willing and able' to cope with the business side of it. presumably, your friend will have only used their assessed number of hours care and therefore should have the overpaid amount left in their account.

hope this doesn't sound too harsh. on the other hand- in your friends defence - they should have had at least an annual review and this should have been noticed long before two years had passed. i should advise them to speak to their independent living advisor and their social worker asap. even if they are asked to repay, it should be possible to make staged repayment if the money has been 'mis-spent'.
hth

ooo, took me ages to write all that, sorry.

don;t confuse dp with tax credits - not at all the same thing*

thank you! I'm rather concerned myself as my care plan was assessed at "8 hours during school terms, 15-18 during school holidays" and I have no idea how much I've been paid. Or what counts as school holidays etc. Her problem will be similar. Her dh works away and when he is away she gets one amount, and when he is home, another. Very difficult to keep track of.

The paperwork side of dp's really sucks, have to admit to completely resenting it. Our local SS keep adding more and more paperwork that I don't understand. It's OK for the person sat in an office paid to shove paper around all day deciding we need to fill in yet another form (giving the same information as other forms we already fill in) when they're not full time caring.

i do empathise with your situation. in your shoes, i'd ask them to stipulate how many weeks per year at which rates to avoid confusion. how about at your next review asking for 30minutes per week for paperwork? (seriously)

is your friend in the same la as you?
do you have an ila? in ours it's penderels trust but i know there's a few accross the country

yep- local authority keeps getting zero stars. The thing is there's no alternaitve either. There are no suitable playschemes (all have been closed, in favour of "inclusive" ones- that are completely unsuitable), and even the overnight respite service is being threatened with closure.

I am getting very good help from the support service (checked last night and I did have an annual review and I have already had an audit, so no nasty surprises I think), for some reason my friend isn't. Neither of us have SW any more though (looks as if my anual review is overdue which would explain why), which I think is pretty poor considering that both of us have children that will need SS input for the rest of their lives. Mylast SW was good as well. grrrr.

DP's are not mean tested and are actually for the child not the parent.

My SW explained that when the elderly get it is means tested as they have savings etc. With dp's for children it doesn't matter if you are in a bed sit or a 1 million pound house as the child earns nothing. So both sets of parents would be entitled to the same thing.

I have quite a big backlog of dp's myself as I had huge problems with my first carer but apparently I can just use them up now paying my mum for over nights that kind of thing.

SP- you were right- I spoke to my friend this morning- they started paying her for when her dh was home as well as when he was away. The mistake happened when they changed the way they paid her from monthly to weekly, but she was audited last year (they didn't pick it up!).

blossom - that's not strictly true about older people. they don have a means tested contribution to pay towards any kind of care they receive (in england and wales at least - not sure about scotland)- BUT this should not affect the amount of hours or funding they get in terms of dp.
jj - has she got the overpaid money in her account still then? i would still expect that ss will want the money back even tho it's their mistake. if i were her tho, i'd make a bit of noise about getting both a care and a financial review. the law says that people receiving any kind of service from ss should have AT LEAST one annual review. does your la give out 'what to expect from your la' kind of leaflets - or you could find their policies on line to back her up.

She should be providing Soc Svs Finance with a quarterly return, that's what I have to do. It sounds like it is an overpayment in error but, just fyi, what can happen is that if you don't use up all the money for whatever reason, it builds up in your account. There is some set amount that is allowed to build up and then they are allowed to take it away (or not pay more until its gone back down to the allowed amount). I was threatened with having my healthy balance clawed-back but I pointed out that it was coming up to the summer hols and I would use it all up. I have accumulated some by not giving my "lovely girl" a pay rise and hardly ever paying her holiday or sick pay as it doesn't come up much. I'm also over-cautious in case I go over and subsidise extra hours myself. The best way to manage it is to make sure you have on-line banking so you can check exactly what is there each week or whenever necessary.

The quarterly returns are 2 years overdue! Seriously. Our SS is continually described as being "in crisis" for good reason.

Apparently they have told her to write down how much time she thinks she needs, so I don't know if they're tyring to do a care review as well. I told her to say 24 hours a week whilst her dh is away!