CCM12035 - Opening and Working Enquiries: No S18 decision notice issued
You cannot open an enquiry until an award has been finalised
but there is no requirement in section 19 of the Tax Credits Act
for the claimant to have received a copy of the decision. If the
screen shows the award has been finalised but there is no date of
issue for the award notice how you proceed depends on whether the
case is an auto renewal or reply required case.
Auto renewal cases
In auto renewal cases the claimant is sent a S17 notice (TC603R)
asking them to check their circumstances and calculate their income
for the year. We then explain that if their circumstances
haven’t changed, and their income is less than a certain
amount or within certain tolerances they need take no further
action. We also explain that if they don’t contact us by the
first specified date that we will make a decision on that date
based on the information set out in the S17 notice. The notice also
tells them what the details of their award will be. This means that
we then don’t have to send out another notice telling them
about their award once we have made our S18 decision on or after
the first specified date.
In these cases you can open an enquiry under S19 of the Tax
Credits Act 2002 as soon as the S18 decision has been made.
Reply required cases
In reply required cases the claimant is sent a reply required
S17 notice (TC603R and TC603D). We ask them to check their
circumstances and calculate their income for the year and we tell
them they must reply by the first specified date.
If they reply by the first specified date we make our S18
decision using the information they give us and the system should
send them a notice of their award for that year and also for the
current year.
If they don’t reply by the first specified date we make
our S18 decision based on the information we have and the system
should send them a notice of their award for that year and will
initiate action to recover their run-on payments.
In some cases the S18 decision is made but the system does
not send out an award notice. In a ‘reply required’
case, whenever we make a decision about a claimant’s award we
are legally required to send them an award notice. Normally the
decision notice is issued promptly but the legislation
doesn’t specify a time limit for sending the notice. However,
we must tell them what our decision is and give them the right to
appeal against it.
If you have a case for enquiry which has been selected either
as part of the mandatory enquiry programme or through risk
assessment and the claimant has not had a notice of our S18
decision you cannot open your enquiry until after they have had the
notice of our decision, and had time to consider whether they want
to appeal or not.
In these cases you should:
- Issue a manual award notice. The notice must include details of
the claimant’s circumstances so that they can check whether
they are happy that we have made the right decision. Be careful
when you are taking this information from the system, and if you
are not sure what information to take from the system ask a more
experienced colleague or your manager.
- BF the case for 40 days. This allows time for the notice to
reach the claimant and any appeal to reach you.
- Then:
- If there is no appeal, open your enquiry and proceed normally.
- If the claimant appeals you will not be able to open your enquiry until after the appeal is resolved either by being settled by agreement or through a decision by the Appeal Tribunal. Once the appeal has been resolved check whether the enquiry window is still open, see CCM12020. If the enquiry window is still open then consider whether an enquiry is still appropriate before opening your enquiry. An enquiry would no longer be appropriate if, for example, the only risk was an income discrepancy and the claimant pointed out the incorrect income when they appealed against the award notice, and the appeal was settled by correcting the discrepancy.
