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Assessment Phase length - can anyone beat this?
Saw a client regarding a DLA appeal. Asked if he was in receipt of ESA and he said yes, at the “basic rate” - for 2 years. Checked with ESA and yes, they had referred him in June 2013 for a WCA but no response. When I said how could that be the person I spoke to said that’s why the government have decided to use someone else!
No contest - one (very nomadic) client, who expresses no interest in pursuing his assessment, seems to have been in the assessment phase since 16/04/2010!! He gets his PIP and his wife is on CA. Now exempted from the Benefit Cap. Happy Days for him. And one in the eye for IDS who is blissfully unaware that such claimants are still out there “languishing”!!
PS. He’s not persuaded that there’s any point in rushing for an extra component…
According to DWP stats there were 30 thousand (after rounding up) claims more than 2 years old and still in the assessment phase. 135 thousand between 6 and 12 months old 77 thousand more than a year old.
All numbers as of November last year.
[ Edited: 21 May 2015 at 11:58 am by Dan_Manville ]According to DWP stats there were 30 thousand (after rounding up) claims more than 2 years old and still in the assessment phase. 135 thousand between 6 and 12 months old 77 thousand more than a year old.
All numbers as of November last year.
It kind of sums all of this up that during the “assessment phase” the one thing you can absolutely guarantee won’t happen… is an assessment!
Perhaps better titled “Period in which nothing at all happens”?
I shall leave to others the potential alternatives and their accompanying acronyms :)
I have a client who has been on the assessment rate since 2010. A tribunal hearing took place but the DWP say they never received a judgment from the tribunal, so they have continued paying at the AR. The tribunal don’t keep hard copies of judgments for that long so they have told us to advise the DWP to make a written request for a SCREEN SHOT of the judgment from the tribunal’s computer system. You have to smile at these things sometimes :)
I’ve had several clients in similar positions though both had lost their appeals. It was a real dilemma as to whether to rock the boat or not. It’d be even more of a dilemma now with the 6 month revolving door provision being defunct.