UK Offence Report

Failure to notify

regulation 29 of The Social Security (Payments on account, Overpayments and Recovery) Regulations 1988

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

29 If a person fails to comply with any requirement under regulation 27 or 28 to give notice of any matter to the Secretary of State he shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding— a for any one offence, level 3 on the standard scale; or b for an offence of continuing any such contravention, £40 for each day on which it is so continued.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds
a person
Conduct
failing to comply with a notice or direction
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

What would breach regulation 29?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

  1. Being served with a notice under the Social Security (Payments on account, Overpayments and Recovery) Regulations 1988 and doing nothing by the date it specifies.
  2. Doing part of what the notice requires, where it required all of it.
  3. Disagreeing with the notice and ignoring it, rather than using whatever appeal the instrument provides.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
£400
Standard scale
Level 3
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

this is the level 3 value when the instrument came into force (1988-04-11); the standard scale is keyed to the date the offence was committed, and for conduct today the same words mean £1000.

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
Status not determined
Made
30 March 1988
In force from
11 April 1988
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations, a draft of which has been laid before and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament, come into force on 11th April 1988 and replace, with amendments, the Social Security (Payments on account, Overpayments and Recovery) Regulations 1987 (S.I. 1987/491) and Part IV of the Supplementary Benefit (Trade Disputes and Recovery from Earnings) Regulations 1980 (S.I. 1980/1641) which cease to have effect. The main amendments are consequential upon the introduction of family credit and income support. Other amendments— 1 take account of the change in the assessment of capital for income support (tariff income) in calculating overpayments flowing from a misrepresentation as to claimant’s capital (regulation 14); 2 relate to the amount of income support which can be deducted in respect of overpayment of benefit (regulation 16(4)); 3 provide that, in the calculation of a claimant’s protected earnings, housing costs are calculated at a fixed rate (regulation 19). The Regulations contain transitional provisions which enable recovery of supplementary benefit and family income supplement to continue to be made by including those benefits in the definition of “benefit” and provide for continuity of action done or begun under the regulations which are revoked. The Regulations are made under provisions of the Social Security Act 1986 none of which has yet been in force for 12 months. Accordingly, the Regulations are exempt, by section 61(5) of the Social Security Act 1986, from reference to the Social Security Advisory Committee and have not been so referred.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

What Parliament said

Mentions of this instrument in Hansard. Parliamentary material is reused under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.92.

Basis
the provision says a person is “guilty of an offence”
Confidence
0.92 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source