Mandatory reconsiderations

Has anyone else had problems with getting an MR up and running?

I recently sent in a letter headed ‘Request for a Mandatory Reconsideration’ with all the grounds set out and properly signed by the ‘appellant’.

About two weeks later I got a letter saying that they had looked at the decision again but had not changed their minds and suggesting that the claimant should ask for a Mandatory Reconsideration. I ‘phoned and they have now put the matter forward for an MR.

Is this how it is meant to work? I thought that a request for an MR in writing would automatically start the MR process- have I got this wrong?

We’ve had this before. See the ‘bad practice’ thread.

In short, no you haven’t got it wrong, but the DWP seems to be making it up as they go along and sometimes create an additional (spurious) ‘revision’ layer. I complained last time it happened to one of my clients and asked them to quote the relevant regs they were relying upon. I received a very short response in which they insisted they were correct (unsuprisingly, no regs were mentioned). As the client had decided not to persue the issue anyway and as I was having a particularly bad week in terms of banging my head against brick walls I reluctantly let it go.

Thanks for the reassurance, I have been off work for a while and this is the first MR I have tried to do. To be fair the person I spoke to was very helpful and immediately triggered the MR but she was quite convinced (and quite convincing) that there was an intermediate step before an MR. Its only when I thought about it I began to think it wasn’t right!

I have had a similar experience. I as told by a DM yesterday that there is a revision stage prior to the Mandatory Revision Reconsideration stage- tried to get more clarity on this from her but with no success.

It’s teeth-grindingly irritating and I can’t decide whether it’s a deliberate strategy to frustrate the disputes process (yes, my paranoia probably knows no bounds) or just a ‘training issue’.

The response I had from them when I banged off a complaint in respect of the client I mentioned above was as follows:

‘..For your information, the Appeals Reform was introduced on 28th October 2014. The proceedure now is for all decisions to be reviewed by the initial decision making team before they are sent for Mandatory Reconsideration. At this point the customer has the opportunity to supply new evidence. If the decision is able to be changed we can then resolve the matter expediently. As no new evidence was provided we reviewed the original decision which was upheld. Now tha you have informed us you wish to proceed, the case has been passed to the Disputes Resolution Team who deal with Mandatory Reconsiderations.’

As I say, its a spurious additional layer in the disputes process which doesn’t exist in law. I would love to have pushed the above one further but the client’s circumstances changed and things moved on.

Thanks everyone, I’m glad its not me! I wonder if it might be worth amending my standard letter to include reference to the regs concerning MR’s as in “I am writing to ask for an MR under reg etc etc”.

Recent experience - we submit a written MR request for client with our org named as rep.  approx 2 weeks letter client receives a letter (not copied to us) telling him he cannot appeal a decision and he has to proceed by way of MR first.  Helpfully, they said that on this occasion they were prepared to treat the correspondence as a request for MR.  Client somewhat confused.

I couldn’t resist responding and thanking them for treating our request for a mandatory reconsideration as ....... a mandatory reconsideration.

perhaps we should revise the old airline ad to read ‘I’m Mandy…ignore me’

‘..For your information, the Appeals Reform was introduced on 28th October 2014. The proceedure now is for all decisions to be reviewed by the initial decision making team before they are sent for Mandatory Reconsideration. At this point the customer has the opportunity to supply new evidence. If the decision is able to be changed we can then resolve the matter expediently. As no new evidence was provided we reviewed the original decision which was upheld. Now tha you have informed us you wish to proceed, the case has been passed to the Disputes Resolution Team who deal with Mandatory Reconsiderations.’

Interesting. It’s clear from regulation 3ZA that after the first reconsideration, appeal rights then immediately arise. So what they are calling the ‘mandatory’ reconsideration ceases to be mandatory, and of the two stages it is only the first that is mandatory….  the question is then: how to get the Tribunals Service to accept this?

Yes, it needs to be done doesn’t it?

I suppose the obvious way to do it is to lodge the appeal, wait for it to be rejected by TS, re-submit it with a request for a Direction and hopefully get an appeal accepted as validly made.

My local authority tried a similar type of obfuscation with housing benefit appeals recently. These are not subject to the mandatory reconsideration (probably because the government expected housing benefit to become extinct fairly quickly as universal credit rolls out.) In effect, the borough appeals officer was trying to get claimants to send an appeal letter twice. I made a complaint to the borough solicitor, in a letter which spelled out what the law is, that applies to the conduct of housing benefit appeals, and stating that I expected the HB department staff to be instructed on the correct way if handling them. That ended the problem.
We have not had the same problem as described in this thread with the DWP and mandatory reconsiderations, but if we did, I would try a detailed complaint in the same way. Complaints can work, though I find you have to keep on top of the process and be prepared to follow them through, as they don’t often get resolved at the first or second stage.

Pete C - 17 April 2014 10:59 AM

perhaps we should revise the old airline ad to read ‘I’m Mandy…ignore me’

Nice one by the way!

have a look at my previous thread on this, dwp at all levels from decision maker to local jobcentre manager to helpline staff were clueless about MR, the proverbial man in the stree is more switched on. after giving my client wrong advice , calling a scrappy sheet with a one line, ‘we have looked at the decision but not changed it’ letter a MR and also telling my client to sign off jsa as she now had the right to appeal the esa decision to a tribunal, the dwp sent her ,—————yes a GL24 form to complete and return to the dwp, all this weeks after MR was in place. anyway after a brutal letter of complaint   from me the dwp decided my client was not only not fit for work but put her in the support group and gave a £50 cheque as a sweetener for the distress caused. oh and they wrote to my local JC manger to bring her up to date on this new fangled MR thingy.