Won ESA appeal, but DWP are telling me they have no record of this.

I have two separate clients, both appealed ESA decisions. Both on JSA while their appeals were going through, both mental health clients.

They both won their appeals in december, shortly before the holidays.

I have rung ESA since coming back from leave and have been told that for whatever reason they have no record of the clients winning their appeals.

I rang the tribunal service today, who confirmed that they had indeed notified the DWP of the wins and that if the DWP have not received this, they have an internal process for requesting the inforamtion.

When i speak to DWP the onus is put on me to send the inforamtion to them, which i have. However, in both cases neither has been received.

Has anyone else had this experience recently?

This is not unusual. Although decisions are generally emailed direct to DWP (depending on IT facility available at the particular tribunal venue) DWP often claim not to have received it. As we undertand it they are emailed to an address provided by DWP.

The problem is more likely that the once recived it has not yet been dealt with or recorded on the system by the appeal team that prepared the submission so the caller centre or processing centre (which will be physically elswhere) can see no record of the decision. Until the appeal team enter the decision on the system it will not have been referred to processing for payment.

Proverbial rocket may be required!

Yes but luckily I’ve got a GCSx account so DWP will accept emails from me. They might be willing to give you their team inbox address if you ask nicely.

Am I missing something but haven’t your clients or you got copies of the FTT’s decision.  If so send the DWP a copy.
On the broader issue, I have found it quite common to be told the DWP has not yet received the FtT decision. I agree with Peter’s hypothesis. We have to be aware that the underlying reason for the delays in benefits’ administration generally is the cuts imposed on the DWP by the Government. No longer are the delays the exception, they are quickly becoming the rule and things are going to get worse because the majority of the cuts are still to come over the next 4 years.

Hi, yes the decision should have been emailed through to DWP but it can still take up to 7 weeks for it to work its way through the system. I’ve been given a number of reasons for this but most fall in to the range of ‘we need time to check the decision, work out the back date. I have contacted the ESA section direct and ‘faxed’ copies of the decision through. Mind you have also been told ‘on the QT’ that the email can take a while to get checked.

May be worth while contacting your local section and if they still haven’t had the decision offering to email/fax a copy.