UK: Disability benefits (ESA and PIP) - news and updates up to end of 2020

The amount claimed is peanuts. The DWP will offer to pay in full without an admission of liability before it ever comes to court, which would be a sort of precedent to encourage other claimants, but not a legal judgement on the issue. So it's unlikely to result in a legal precedent, but could encourage many more claims, which seems to be what the claimant here wants. Not all other claimants will be in his luxurious position though - a lawyer familiar with the procedure and able to do all the work himself for free or with legal friends who'll do it for him without charging.

EDIT: The claimant might refuse such an offer without an admission of liability, and take it all the way to court, but then he'd be at risk of having to pay the DWP's legal costs from that point onwards, which could well amount to the price of his house. That's the way it used to work when I was in the game 25 years ago anyway (with the "payments into court" system), things might have changed since then.

 

I hope you'll be right @Trish. I really do!

Here, it is common practice of the authorities to "save" money by doing things that lead to a denial of benefits - things that are illegal by law. Your only option is to hand in an appeal - which leads to nothing because the authority won't change its mind, even if it knows it acts against the law, and it does know in most cases - and then go to court. Your only chance is a legal process. But most people won't go to court or even appeal.

The next thing is that authorites "punish" you (i.e. denial of social help) if you act accordingly to your rights because they look upon this as "querolous" and, it seems, they then want to demonstrate their power; which is, very obviously, very anti-democratic, where we are told we have basic human rights and where it should be natural for authorities to do what they're supposed to do. It seems authorities nowadays are organized differently...Either you obey or you are denied benefits.

In short, I fear people won't go to court more, but people in UK are not people in Germany. It would be good and important if people went to court and fought for their (basic) rights; very bad we have to do that!

 

https://www.s4me.info/threads/work-...s-of-pip-and-esa-assessments.2344/#post-44545

 

An overview of the story from the Disability News Service.

https://www.disabilitynewsservice.c...-breaking-legal-case-over-pip-discrimination/

 

In fact that is something I was wondering about: What can you do in the case an authority purposefully acts against the law? Now, it is very dificult to prove an intent, but in this case - of the lawyer - he claims they ignored certain evidence, which can be shown more easily. There is the question if this is enough for proving intent. (Common sense might say yes, but in law there exists no common sense most of the time.) Second, can you go against state authorities? (In UK obviously yes...)
Interesting case.

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/...for-people-with-most-severe-health-conditions

 

Surely that means that such people will be thrown on the scrapheap/left to rot/etc. and surely not doing this was one of the primary justifications for scrapping DLA, at least according to the Tory's press statements.

Please don't misunderstand, I am all for this, if it's applied, I'm just pointing out the utter hypocrisy, in a small fashion.

 

Meanwhile, I was just reading FOI'd letter from Action for ME telling the DWP it's important for people with ME to stay 'positive' about prognosis... who could have guessed that might come back to hurt us.

 

A similar thing was promised by Damian Green for ESA for chronic conditions, which later transpired would be on a case by case basis but I have not seen any evidence that it was in fact put into practice.

 

surely just signs that someone has realised the waste of taxpayers money involved in repeating the same farce year on year against people who have lifelong disabilities. there has been many cases where children born with serious conditions have been put through this process how stupid are the people responsible for creating this abusive system not to put obvious caveats in place to prevent needless harassment of very disabled people and their carers .

 

They are not at all stupid, the system was deliberately designed so as to be "abusive". That's the aim and the point of it. IMO.

 

The absurdity of it all has been highlighted time and again:

"A teenager whose arms and legs were amputated after he nearly died from meningitis was ordered to attend a meeting in person or risk losing his disability benefits, his parents have said."
"“It isn’t like he’s going to get better. He isn’t going to suddenly grow new arms and legs. We were shocked to be asked to attend the meeting."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...he-is-disabled-to-keep-benefits-a6880526.html

"
A Mintlaw man who lost both of his legs in an accident four years ago has been told he must prove he is disabled, for a second time.

Daniel Gallagher, 26, says he has been told that he must go to Aberdeen and prove that he is still disabled as his Disability Living Allowance changes to a Personal Independence Payment."

https://www.fraserburghherald.co.uk...aw-man-told-to-prove-he-is-disabled-1-4110012

and these are people with very visible disabilities.

 

"
BRIEFING PAPER
Number 07820, 13 July 2018

Since 29 September 2017, some Employment Support Allowance claimants with the most severe health conditions and disabilities have been exempt from future reassessments.

On 18 June 2018 the Government announced that an equivalent exemption from reassessment would be introduced for Personal Independence Payment claimants on the highest level of support - where their needs are expected to stay the same."

"
1.1 Criteria for “switching off” ESA reassessments

On 29 September 2017, the DWP announced that ESA claimants in the Support Group and Universal Credit claimants with limited capability for work and work-related activity (LCWRA), attending a Work Capability Assessment will no longer need to be reassessed if they:
• have a severe, lifelong disability, illness or health condition
• are unlikely to ever be able to move into work
Claimants will be told if they will not be reassessed following their WCA."

"
DWP Severe Conditions Guidance for healthcare professionals (HCPs)6 states that to avoid a reassessment, claimants will have to satisfy, all four of the following:

1. the level of function will always meet LCWRA criteria;
2. the condition will always be present (some lifelong conditions are present from birth, but others will develop or be acquired later in life);
3. no realistic prospect of recovery of function (with advice on this being based on currently available treatment and not on the prospect of scientists discovering a cure in the future);
4. unambiguous condition (following all relevant clinical investigations a recognised medical diagnosis has been made).7
If all the above four criteria and any of the LCWRA criteria are met, the HCP is to advise the decision maker that the claimant has a severe condition and has LCWRA."

ESA and PIP reassessments - Parliament UK

Severe Conditions guidance is here:

 

So

4. unambiguous condition (following all relevant clinical investigations a recognised medical diagnosis has been made).

would bar anyone with ME from exemption

 

"The Department of Health officially recognises ME/CFS to be a ‘debilitating and distressing condition’ and more recently ‘recognises CFS/ME as a neurological condition of unknown origin’."
https://www.meassociation.org.uk/about/

that's the theory anyway but in practice...hm

 

I think that the problem is diagnosis. ME may be recognised by them 'unambiguously', but diagnosis is much more ambiguous, so there's leeway for them to argue a particular illness isn't unambiguous.

 

PIP review changes come into force 31st May 2019

https://www.express.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/1134468/pip-assessment-dwp-disability-benefits-uk

 

DWP gives private companies £630m for more disability benefit tests

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...st-government-contracts-pip-esa-a8949631.html

 

DWP now has a FaceBook page... When I looked there was some critical replies stuff there. Suspect they may get taken down soon?

This whole thing is a farce. But that's what DWP and the whole UK benefits system is.

Grrr!