Recording a WCA

Does anyone ever record the WCA or advise clients to do so?

I found the link below which talks about some rules on doing it:
http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/9844/

The ESA decisions I’ve had recently have been so bad that I feel I need to record the WCA. The information quoted from WCAs in decisions has been misleadingly selective at best.

The previous thread is just about (the absurd requirements on) bringing in your own recording equipment. The following page, and the linked DWP guidance, seems to suggest that Maximus might be able to provide their own recording equipment, on advance request (?):
https://www.chdauk.co.uk/faq/finding-help/how-do-i-request-audio-recorded-assessment

By contrast, Atos PIP assessments seem to be strictly BYOR:
http://www.atoshealthcare.com/pip/faq_view/recording_my_consultation

[I definitely wouldn’t encourage this sort of thing, but in the event a claimant surreptitiously recorded their own assessment on a phone, I can imagine appeal scenarios where the recording might be useful to try and bring up in evidence. A tribunal shouldn’t exclude such evidence merely because it ‘broke the rules’, though there may well be questions raised about its authenticity of course.]

also this

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/418925/wca-audio-recording-policy-march_2015.pdf

and this:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm130606/text/130606w0002.htm#13060670000031

Edit
Sorry just realised that top link is on the link already provided by Jon

If anyone is interested, there was a good discussion on this issue as it relates to PIP examinations, in a recent edition of “In touch”, the programme for blind and visually impaired listeners.  Listen at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07mvxx0  .  If you don’t want the whole programme, start 11 mins 25 secs in.

Advisers need to be careful here.  If claimants secretly record the WCA then, as said above, it can be used as evidence but if they pass that recording on to a third party, such as the press, then they might be guilty of a criminal offence, subject to a public interest defence.  The assessment body has to agree to open recording on proper equipment with verifiable safeguards.

Absolutely.

Something else worth considering;

Whilst I can understand claimants’ outrage at the wildly inaccurate reports that result from examinations and consequent desire to have an accurate record of what was said, my own view is that in the majority of cases any recording will be of only limited value in winning the appeal.**

1. Whilst a recording might assist in ‘keeping the examiner honest’ (i.e. assuming permission to record has been given) in so much as the report will not be able to impute statements to the claimant that they did not make, it will not prevent things like “well kempt, good eye contact, did not appear to be sweating/shaking…” etc.

2. Even where a recording is able to reveal real inaccuracies in a report, the best this achieves is to show the report is unreliable. And most reports are so full of self-contradictory statements and speculation that advisers can seriously damage their worth in fairly short order.

3. In my experience, attempts to undermine the credibility of the HCP report to the tribunal are, in the vast majority of cases, preaching to the choir. Tribunals know the reports are rubbish, that examinations are quite brief, cursory and conducted by poorly trained and motivated individuals. In other words, you’re pushing at an open door when trying to undermine the ESA85.

4. So the best that can be achieved by recording an examination is to undermine the DWP’s evidence - a battle you’ve already won in the eyes of most reasonable tribunals. But what you’ve not done is to establish the conditions of entitlement are actually met. And assuming that you’ve managed to get clear instructions from the client that establish entitlement and assuming the client comes across as reasonably credible, the key thing (I’d go so far as to say paramount) is obtaining medical evidence from those actually treating your client that goes some way to confirming/supporting what they say about the effects of their conditions. If you do that, you’re home and dry in the majority of cases.

[** - recordings for other purposes - e.g. exposing dishonest/inaccurate reports and the failures of the system are something else. They may well help serve that purpose].

Couldn’t have put it better Past Caring. Spot on IMHO.

Thanks for all the comments. My client phoned Maximus to request the recording and was told that she just has to ask on the day and she will be given a copy of the recording before she leaves. We shall see…

geep - 26 August 2016 02:59 PM

Thanks for all the comments. My client phoned Maximus to request the recording and was told that she just has to ask on the day and she will be given a copy of the recording before she leaves. We shall see…

Interesting. Might be worth following up. I seem to recall their web site says 5 working days and when my clients rang up they were either told 7 or 5.

That said, top post from Past Caring. Absolutely spot on.

Got to the WCA this morning and they said that they had run out of tapes. (Client decided to go ahead anyway as she didn’t want to come back another day.)

Sorry for jumping onto an old thread and being incredibly lazy by asking rather than doing my own research (I’m very busy guv!), but I just wondered what the rules around refusing to submit to an assessment are if a recording is not possible on the day? Do clients have the right to refuse and request a reassessment at another time?

Thanks