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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Disability benefits  →  Thread

Claimants being telephoned on decision being made

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Welfare Rights Adviser - Southwark Law Centre, Peckham

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Ben E Fitz - 01 August 2014 03:45 PM

A colleague of mine has had two clients notified by text!!!!

U r nt ntitld LOL.

Andrew Dutton
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Welfare rights service - Derbyshire County Council

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SHowells - 04 August 2014 12:07 PM
Ben E Fitz - 01 August 2014 03:45 PM

A colleague of mine has had two clients notified by text!!!!

U r nt ntitld LOL.

Brilliant.

It seems to me that, under cover of ‘getting it right first time’ there is a process of attrition:

Make them wait a year - some may give up and we can claim they were never entitled and were put off by our rigorous approach. [as has been claimed previously for ESA]

Give ‘em phone calls to ‘reassure’ that a negative decision is correct - some may give up at this point and we can claim that etc etc

Make getting an MR as hard as possible to get by insisting on ‘explanations’ and blurring the distinction between explanation, MR and appeal - some may give up at this point (etc)

Drag the MR out as far as possible, refuse to revise the decision. Some may give up (etc)

Turn up to appeals but then demand an SoR even where no error of law is detected. Claimants and judges may be worn out by this time, and give up.

By this time, those who haven’t given up and are still alive are clearly pretty determined sorts. Proves they are perfectly capable and were never entitled in the first place.

Case closed.

 

 

Bryan R
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Folkestone Welfare Union

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I’d like to know what ‘reasonable adjustment’ they might make for a Catatonic Schizophrenic’ when an episode of shutdown happens?

Can’t answer the phone, nor read texts, nor get sick notes from docs, go out etc etc.

JohnColegate
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Riverside Advice, Riverside, Cardiff, Glamorgan.

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Telephone calls, no matter how much the D.W.P. are obsessed with them to an almost creepy extent, can never constitute a proper and fair communication of a decision. A decision must always be notified in writing, by letter. A person needs to have it in writing, to remind them of the date, and the general terms of the decision, be it a refusal or an allowance. Thankfully, this is provided for in law, so the D.W.P. cannot just change it, unless the law is changed, and it certainly better not be!

Geri-G
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Welfare reform team - North Ayrshire Council

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My first PIP appeal this morning (lost). I couldnt attend but had prepared a written submission, had evidence from her GP. PO from DWP turned up-kept badgering my client about why she didnt tell them certain information on the phone when they phoned to give her their decsion.My client has mental health issues, and a phone call from DWP sent her into a blind panic.
Her friend (who helps care for her), was not allowed to speak, but the PO was apparently allowed to say what she liked.
I await the Statement of Reasons and ROP!

Jon Shaw
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Billy Durrant - 01 August 2014 06:06 PM

I thought that they were supposed to contact the claimant prior to the decision (if it was a negative decision/reduced award) to explain why the CM was minded to make this decision and give the opportunity for extra info that may change the decision. Seems that this has been shifted off to the MR period instead, hence further delays. Sigh.

Other than that, no phone calls.

My understanding is that the PIP call is different to the ESA one, which at least used to be made before the decision, as a last ditch opportunity for the claimant to change the benevolent DM’s always-open mind with an explanation of their needs.

This is from the (no longer fancily designed) ‘PIP claimant journey’ pdf on gov.uk:

‘If a claim has been disallowed, or an existing award reduced, then the
Decision Maker will try to call the claimant to explain the decision.
If the claimant disagrees with the decision they can ask the Decision Maker to
look at it again – this is known as a reconsideration.’

In terms of whether this is an attempt to reduce the number of revision requests, no need for any conspiracy theories. I quote the ‘PIP handbook’ (also on gov.uk) at p28:

‘After the decision letter has been issued, if a claim has been disallowed or an existing award reduced then the DWP decision maker will try to phone the claimant to discuss the decision and explain the reasons for making that decision.

The purpose of the phone call is to ensure the claimant understands the reason why PIP has not been awarded or has been awarded at a lower rate and to answer any questions or concerns that the claimant may have about the decision. We believe that this approach will minimise the number of disputes.’

Who knew that gov.uk acutally had useful information on it!

I’m firmly of the view that a revision request is probably better made in writing like what we did in the good old days, rather than trying to get the client to browbeat a DM into accepting that they are requesting a revision.

It has the advantage of avoiding the kind of utter nonsense the DM was spouting in Jane OP’s example, as they cannot prevent you from writing to request a revision before the phone call and thus ruining the process map from which NONE SHALL DEPART! (Apart from by using the gravitational effect of the black hole of Wolverhampton/Telford/Kidderminster to never receive your letter, of course, but that is another - more plausible - conspiracy theory…)

The other thing is probably to make people aware that the contents of the phone call may well end up ‘transcribed’ into their appeal papers. The few I’ve seen do not look to be exactly word-for-word what the claimants in question have put on the questionnaire (he understated).

Jon

AndreaM
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Debt team - Citizens Advice Southwark

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So far, I had 2 clients who were awarded PIP.  Don’t know how one of them was notified, the 2nd one found money in account and received ESA form for extra money and had to ask for copy of award letter.  Hope there are no refusal letters they forget to send out…

And - slightly off topic - my clients are getting totally confused about the PPI texts they keep receiving, telling them they are entitled to (what they think is)PIP or compensation for not getting PIP.

Andrew Dutton
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Welfare rights service - Derbyshire County Council

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Has anyone else come across this? - 

PIP claimant phones DWP to request MR. Is told that they cannot take MR request over the phone but that a DM will call within two weeks to discuss the decision.

I know what this looks like to me. Any other thoughts??

Mike Hughes
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Senior welfare rights officer - Salford City Council Welfare Rights Service

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Yes, there are 2 standard lines. 1 is that you cannot make an MR request over the phone. 2 is that you must have “new” evidence.

Such is the frequency of this nonsense I now find I have a finely crafted verbal spiel which just flows when I staff our advice line. Yes, you can make an application over the phone and no, you don’t need new evidence.

1964
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Deputy Manager, Reading Community Welfare Rights Unit

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Another twist we have had recently is a client who mislaid her (negative) MR outcome. We’re going to assist her in lodging a late (by around two months) appeal so we asked her to ring the contact centre to request that a copy of the MR outcome was sent to her. She did so, twice. The first time she was told that if she wanted to dispute the decision she would have to write in & request a further MR and the second time she was told they wouldn’t send her a copy of the MR because she was out of time to appeal….We had to ring on her behalf and complain before they would agree that it was possible to send her a copy.

JFSelby
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Benefit caseworker (SDAIN project) - Selby CAB, North Yorkshire

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Client of mine had the phone call to ‘explain’ the totally negative decision three days after the ‘date’ we will call you by on the decision letter

she was in the supermarket ( a tiny local one) and asked if they would call her back

appears she was then told they would take a note that she could ‘walk round a supermarket’ and ‘carry her own shopping’ and everything else

Her son ( who took her and helped) took the phone and barked ‘call back later’

client hasnt of course been called back we wait to see if there is any mention in the decision of the MR when we get it back

Gobsmacked again

Mairi
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Welfare rights officer - Dunedin Canmore Housing Association

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Yes, I’ve been told on a couple of occasions that they can’t take the request for a mandatory reconsideration until the decision-maker has been able to speak to the claimant to discuss the reasons for the negative reason.  Got round it by requesting the mandy in writing.

Also had the ‘you can’t request a mandy by phone one’.  In that case it took 9 months and an MP to get the mandy done!  Appeal now submitted.

Jon (CANY)
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Welfare benefits - Craven CAB, North Yorkshire

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Andrew Dutton - 26 November 2014 01:33 PM

Has anyone else come across this? - 

PIP claimant phones DWP to request MR. Is told that they cannot take MR request over the phone but that a DM will call within two weeks to discuss the decision.

I know what this looks like to me. Any other thoughts??

Have a look at Daphne’s post last month in this thread.