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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Disability benefits  →  Thread

Letter says 19 points but no award - a new low

Linda Willars
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Senior benefits and deputyship officer - Leicestershire County Council

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Joined: 17 June 2010

Have you ever heard of a client receiving a letter like this?  This is a client that is migrating from DLA.  On Christmas Eve he received a letter telling him that the outcome of his PIP claim is
- he scores 19 points for daily living therefore they can’t award him any benefit
- he scores 12 points for mobility therefore they can’t award him any benefit

The letter goes on to say that they will stop paying for his Motability vehicle and that his carer’s Carers Allowance will be affected.

Clearly a mistake but the poor man and his family were in a right state about it.  On Christmas Eve as well!  The PIP office wasn’t open until the following Thursday but needless to say we’ve got them to admit their mistake and cough up the cash. 

My client is so cross about it that he’s given me an anonymised copy of his letter in case any of you can make use of it as evidence in your liaison with the PIP office.  If you’d like a copy please send me a message with your email address.

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

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Yes, seen two similar cases. Annoyingly, each time they would not agree to a correction by phone, and referred to a case manager for mandatory reconsideration.

I am now in the habit of checking DWP’s arithmetic whenever possible.

edit: for the record, doing a complaint to PIP yields the explanation “it was probably human input error”.

[ Edited: 13 Jan 2017 at 10:54 am by Jon (CANY) ]
ikbikb
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LSD WB supervisor - Bury District CAB, Lancashire

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Similarish case
Client wins ERDL at Tribunal late 2015
DWP launch review well within Tribunal award period
New assessment awards under 8 points for DL
DWP issue a decision after date of assessment reawarding point for ERDL on points given by Tribunal but for 1 day.
DWP then issue further decision 2 weeks later confirming points awarded in new assessment and remove ERDL
MR lodged pointing out some arguments on these facts
MR Notice received ignoring all these arguments
SSCS1 lodged
Bundle received but identifies DWP decision under appeal as the one re-awarding points for ERDL for 1 day not the later one removing the award.
Which gives plenty of grounds for debate.

Jac
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Welfare benefits adviser - Melville Housing Association, Midlothian

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I too had same scenario and again it took a while to sort out- eventually got correct award paid out but took a while to resolve.

Neil
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Debt & Benefits, Aster Communities

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Joined: 7 November 2013

I say this a lot but for admin errors, do the MR and appeal etc. to protection the Claimants legal options, but you should always involve the MP it is amazing how all the BS gets sorted and how quick it gets sorted.

alang
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Paisley South HA

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Joined: 9 February 2015

I must have been lucky with who I got on the phone, I had one of these cases 6 months ago and phoned through the escalation numbers and got it resolved a few days later.