I would suggest you firm up the "evidence" of the passporting benefit. Of course anybody with only slightly more than a basic understanding of benefits will know that Cold Weather Payments are payable only if the benefit claiamant is entitled to a limited range of (and what amount to passporting) benefits, and therefore you can imply an entitlement to the passporting benefit, but that is not, in my own view, clear evidence of the same. And did the client apply for legal aid at the same time as the CWPayments? If not, then you can't infer entitlement to passporting benefit at the time of aplpying for legal aid, only at some later point in time.

You could call your local Relationship Manager for their view, but again, this would only be their own view. I think to be safe you should chase up hard evidence of the passporting benefit at the appropriate time.

Cold weather payments are made if a person has had entitlement to pension credit (Guarentee or Savings),income support, income based JSA or income related ESA (with the relevant premiums) for at least 1 day during the period of cold weather.
The periodof cold weather is calculatedas a period of 7days during which the average of the mean daily temperature, as forecast or recorded for that period at your designated localweather station,is equal to or below 0 degrees celcius.

Therefore, if a person receives a cold weather payment it does not necessary follow that they are passported to legal help,because they may have only received the qualifying benefit for one day.

Fiona, if you're as old as me, you will remember we used to have a "Universal Benefit". It was called "Supplementary Benefit" but it was replaced by the more simplified "Income Support" system and Jobseekers Allowance by the then Tory Government.