UK: Disability benefits (ESA and PIP) - news and updates 2021 - 2022

I believe I have what I what, thanks to a generous member.

 

Good Luck with your application. I found the B and W information very useful, but we still had to go to Tribunal for full award. This was for my longstanding friend, with ME, who had been on DLA for many years

 

Ministers could merge disability benefits and want to cut future spending, says green paper

July 2021

https://www.disabilitynewsservice.c...want-to-cut-future-spending-says-green-paper/

 

“suggests there is more we can do to enable independent living and employment force the lazy scroungers to live without care, food or a roof, while making it look like we are helping them"

These plans are really chilling. It makes me feel sick, it's hard to envisage how they could make the system any more punitive or find any more ways to deny people help. But no doubt they will find them

 

One way they could make significant saving is by the administration wasted in tormenting vulnerable and sick people.

I would love to see how much on average the cost of administration per claim has risen in the last 5- 10 years.

I can't remember the source but I do remember somewhere hearing that sickness & disability benefits have the lowest rate of fraud of any part of the benefits system.

It's amazing to me that it never, ever seems to occur that perhaps if they spent more on claimants, where appropriate, it might enable some of them to work as they could afford whatever extra help and support might be needed to enable them to do so.

When it comes to "work" or value to the community the government seem to have very rigid and outdated views. Maybe someone can't work in the traditional way but with extra support could contribute in other ways to their community.

 

Also, they could revisit a previous approach where they acted as the claimant's ally when it came to employment. In the 80s and early 90s, a relative of mine worked for them as a disability advisor; her role was to know employment law, advocate for claimants, and (where necessary) help negotiate any adjustments needed for a disabled person to access a particular job.

People who've been out of work a long while often lack the confidence to present their abilities as well as they might, and also to insist on their rights. Have a well-informed civil servant supporting them could make a huge difference to their ability to put themselves forward positively. My relative loved her job and helped a lot of disabled people get on the first rung of the employment ladder, get back to work after injury, etc – until political decisions were taken that shifted the whole relationship with the claimant. She walked at that point, and is horrified by what the department has become.

 

In the 80s unemployment offices not only had boards with jobs on, but their staff would call companies to arrange interviews and supply train tickets to get to them, I got a couple of jobs in other parts of the country due to their help.

Before all of the 'you must apply for x jobs a week' nonsense forced people to apply for jobs they weren't qualified for, and had no interest, in employers would take an advisors recommendation that someone met their requirements well enough that they should consider interviewing them....and did.

Completely different ball game now (or even in the last 20 or so years)

 

True – I got my first job that way. I only went for that one interview, and started work four days later.

The whole process of spending 37 hours a week searching for work, and being forced to apply for jobs where you don't meet even one of the essential criteria, is completely counterproductive. I've been on the receiving end of it as an employer; we were only a small company and would get a couple of hundred pointless applications, but larger employers must be swamped.

It's perhaps easier now with online application forms that can screen out some of the folk who're only applying because they've got to, but it's had a negative effect on recruitment in forcing higher and higher levels of specificity when it comes to criteria. Gone are the days when you could build a diverse workforce by taking into account that not every applicant had had the same life chances, and list someone for interview who, for instance, didn't have the degree but clearly had the talent. You'd never spot them now, in among all the noise.

 

This is a really worrying Green Paper. If people in the UK are able I would suggest responding to the consultation, but ensure you word your responses in a way that can't be twisted (the Green Paper clearly cherry picks the quotes from the initial consultation to promote its own agenda, as well as patently using correlation as cause and effect, e.g. work is good for health).

A short summary of the concerns of disabled led disability groups can be read here:

https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/deep-concern-over-governments-disability-benefits-green-paper/

 

The preventing PIP expiry explanation for extensions does make sense.

I received a year's extension until this time next year (July'22) and then received a review form on the 14th July (dated 6th of course) which I have just sent off.

I was probably at the top of their catch up list as I had a 5 year review period, awarded by the tribunal at my appeal, on the papers.

So the extension should probably be seen as a years leeway rather than a year extra.

 

Unfortunately the DWP caught up with my son's review earlier this year (after my posting above in January). It's been a complete nightmare. Goodness knows what he would have done without my help (he lives miles from me), but it's reduced me to a nervous wreck and we still await the outcome of his Mandatory Reconsideration. He has severe mental illness rather than ME/CFS (schizophrenia and Tourette Syndrome) though his energy levels are very poor due to the meds in part, and I feel that he has as much problems physically as mentally.

Despite sending the DWP loads of new evidence and treating the renewal like a new application (as advised), his enhanced Daily Living was reduced to..... nothing! In fact I believe that he should also have had some Mobility Payment and in the stuff I wrote for him I fought for that too. There is absolutely no way he should have been reduced for Daily Living either.

I took part in the 3 way call with him with the Assessor and in the middle of it he revealed that he had made a recent overdose, and had kept it from me and the medical profession unfortunately as it appears there were 3 between Nov and Feb. But apparently this means nothing to the Assessor or the DWP.

Now he is needing to take debt advice too as he doesn't manage his money well and has huge debts that he cannot now pay. I am trying not to get too involved but that is difficult as he is not good at asking for help or managing it on his own.

 

Thank you @Trish I have been my son's advocate for over 15 years re his benefits' applications and now the Govt has slashed so much support in this area, it's been essential. When he is under stress he cannot put pen to paper and risks destitution at such times. I don't know what will happen when I cannot do this for him. I struggle with it now I am getting older.

Until this application things have always gone well and I have felt that he got a fair hearing. This time the whole thing (which I had heard of these nightmare assessments before) was clearly wrong.

It took a lot of unpicking but it seems that they based their decision almost solely on the say-so of a new psychiatrist who assessed him on the phone and wrote them a report as asked. I think this man was ridiculously stupid or naive, or didn't care what he was doing - writing such things as he didn't know of any reason why my son would need help with Daily Living. No he didn't because he had never met him, didn't bother to read his file and this was his first contact on the phone when apparently he 'sounded well'.

I have sent this man 2 furious letters but needless to say he hasn't responded, and even after my son's overdoses he has had his appointments reduced from 3 months to 6 months. I have never come across such a stupid bunch as psychiatrists where benefits are concerned - they don't seem to realise that they are like gods who have the life of their patients in their hands when they fill in such info for the DWP. GPs are not always great but they at least don't have their heads in the air, and ironically the GP and the previous Psych had both written good letters for my son only 3 mths before this wretched man (expletive deleted), did his fatal so-called report.

Just to cap it all (and a complaint is going to go in but I ran out of energy on this until now), when my son took his last overdose, he rang the Out of Hours service as he thought they would ring an ambulance for him. Maybe it's not allowed I don't know, and they did say he should ring 999 but he had had a bad experience with a friend where he rang 999 for a friend and it was not treated as an emergency so he didn't think they would help him. What appalled me (when I eventually found out about this) is that the so-called service didn't even bother to check he was alive the next day, or did anything to follow up what had happened, other than logging it on their system. Mercifully my son's overdose was not enough to damage him and he is alive and now still struggling.

 

Fightback4Justice offer a MR writing service, but I think they charge around £85 for it. They say they can prepare the papers fairly quickly, I presume that would be if you have the relevant information to hand to forward to them.

 

@Agapanthus it sounds like you need to provide your own independent medico-legal report from a private psychiatrist, one you choose, not NHS.

 

Thank you @Simbindi I will bear them in mind (I know of them) though I have done the MR for this time, but if it comes to the Tribunal, I don't feel able to take that on, on my son's behalf. I have the money to help pay for him luckily. However I am still hopeful on this as I have roped in his MP and mine which sometimes means that the paperwork will get looked at more closely, as I know they have written to the DWP on the subject.

With regard to paying for help.... it is interesting, but I get help from a free online benefits Facebook group who are excellent, but ultimately it's still down to you to DIY, which is all very well though if you have the energy to do it. They are very disapproving of people having to pay but these organisations are getting no funding, so I don't see why it is such a problem. Once upon a time before this Govt, people could get Legal Aid to help them but this has been axed, so if we have to pay someone then it's not ideal but not everyone is able to get their thoughts down clearly.

They seem to indicate that people are let down by Fightback too, and I don't know enough about that to know if it's true. There is another possibility in my county who acts for people countrywide I think, but I would need to investigate further when and if the time comes.

 

I think Fightback are good for people who can send them all the relevant medical reports and medical evidence to work through, but less so for people who cannot manage this. They can pick up internal contradictions in an ATOS or CAPITA medical report, but if you have contradictory or poor medical evidence they can't deal with this issue. I see that they have to charge due to lack of funding to cover their costs, but that doesn't help the most vulnerable people who can't afford even their modest fees. They are probably most useful to people who live locally to them and they can help in person.

I was told they can help with wording of the MR if you do it yourself, via their chat function on their VIP forum (£12 a month to subscribe to) - but that requires energy and cognitive ability too. Same with using their VIP library and guides.

 

@boolybooly Well what I have done is point them to the previous psychiatrist's report which was only 3 months before the new one did his report. The previous psych's report was insightful and supportive of my son - he knew him and had met him face to face.

The new psychiatrist put in his report that my son's schizophrenia was 'in remission' - we don't know where that came from - he had never spoken to my son before that first phone call, and the irony was that my son was so ill at that time that he didn't tell him he had just taken 2 overdoses (a 3rd was to follow) because he thought the previous psych had wanted to section him again!!

Following that first phone call my son had a subsequent phone appointment with him, where my son explained how ill he had been, and he withdrew the 'in remission' phrase and he also increased his meds, and so we have sent that letter to the DWP with the Mandatory Reconsideration paperwork.

Also he has now had a reassessment from a social worker which was sympathetic and indicates his issues with feeling agoraphobic. My son actually gets 28 hours a week of care via Direct Payments and this has just been renewed. You would think this alone would be an indication of my son's needs.

 

I think what you get with Fightback is legal knowledge of relevant caselaw, that is pretty difficult for a non-specialist to have easy access to.

 

The DWP Decision Maker (and HCP who produces the medical report) are supposed to consider ALL the evidence available to them, and seek additional medical evidence if required, so it does sound like you should succeed at MR stage with this additional evidence.