What a disgrace is this &@@& people pay taxas for.
Look's like can have any rights you want as long as not Social & Civil rights.
Perhasp we all should be less social civil given how govermeant tried taking peoples right to appeal away from them.
Sadly, it’s clear that peace is the last thing that the DWP has in mind. More so now than ever before, the DWP is determined to fight every attempt to challenge its decisions or to get it to disclose information.
It is an agency remorselessly at war with the people it is supposed to support.
APPEALS UNLAWFULLY BLOCKED
So, in this update, we have news of the fight the DWP have put up to prevent claimants who are late asking for a mandatory reconsideration from getting to an appeal.
Entirely unlawfully, the DWP has been blocking people from appealing if they miss the one month deadline for asking for a mandatory reconsideration. In truth, the deadline can be extended by a further year where the claimant has good cause for being late. But the DWP had decided that it was up to them to be the judge of whether the claimant had a good reason for missing the deadline and that tribunals shouldn’t be allowed any say in whether they could hear the case.
Happily, a panel of three upper tribunal judges have now said that the DWP must stop preventing claimants from exercising their lawful right to appeal. The case involved ESA, but will apply to all other benefits too.
Have to admit I sent the request for reconsideration letter signed for and then phoned them 4 days letter saying I had notification they had received it and asked had my records been updated to reflect this. At the time of the telephone call to them, the person on the phone checked, oh yes it has been received she said and I am just updating the system now.
She mentioned I can send any further documents to a freepost address, I asked would there be any delay in the freepost documents being seen to, I was told no but of course I wouldn't trust it myself. I have found that the assessors report did not include papers I had left with the assessor and also the assessor was selective in the information he put in his report, ie he would say that you could do something but fail to include he asked you what you could achieve on a better day and also failed to include information of what it was like for 70% of the time, they included mostly what you could do 30% of the time, so they are extremely biased in what they report to DWP. So it is always worth getting a copy of the assessors report. Also I found the DWP marked my claim on what the assessor said nothing of what I had said or what my doctor had said.
In addition the assessors report had 2 missing pages, I have requested these missing pages 3 times and still they have not sent them to me, I wonder why. I have been waiting 6 weeks for these and was informed that another complete copy would be sent, it has not been.
I have not had the decision on the mandatory reconsideration, if they do not award me I feel compelled to go to appeal purely because the DWP made their decision based on misleading, biased and inaccurate information and did not take into account any of my difficulties or supporting information I had supplied separately from my doctor.
I had a bully assessor and reported them same day of the assessment. I felt I was not treated fairly and not respected as an individual, elderly or some one with a chronic long term illness. For me it was the most upsetting experience.
By the way Independent Assessment Services IAS are ATOS they are just using another name, I felt it was a disgrace the way IAS /Atos and DWP dealt with my claim, it was unfair and unjust.
Something needs to change with that system and government department set up to help people in difficulty is in my experience working against helping people in difficulty (I acknowledge my experience may not be the same as others have experienced).
I would rather not have anything to do with it all but it's not right the way they are treating people. People are too ill to have to deal with it all.
Good morning Jeff thanks for that detailed post, I was begining to think like you that joe public had lost all rights to redress, thank goodness the tribunal found against DWP on this occassion.
Its a bit like complaints of a medical nature, the basic rules say as soon as possible but within 12 months at maximum after the icidence, but the law allows three years from date of discovery of a mistake to make a claim , confusing for many.
Hope you and your father are as well as can be, looks like a sunny day for today. I'm resting but lots of little things to do if I have time. Enjoy your day
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