SLAB’s role in verifying receipt of income-related benefits: DWP link

It is your responsibility to satisfy yourself that your client is financially eligible. However, we have a direct link with the Department for Work and Pensions, which allows us to check cases where your client is receiving passport benefits – that is, income support, income-based jobseeker’s allowance, income-related employment and support allowance and Universal Credit.  We can confirm via the DWP if your client is receiving any benefits or not.  You must provide the client’s national insurance number and date of birth on the form to allow us to do this.  You must also provide this for any spouse or partner to whom the benefit is paid, since we take into account the resources of spouses or partners.

If we cannot confirm through the link that your client is receiving the benefit, we will treat the application as though you had not yet verified the client’s income and will contact you and your client for further information.