Reduced rate of ESA Pending Appeal - Bit of a long one go make a mug of tea first.

It must be Friday.  Had phone message from client this morning to say they’d had the acknowledgement letter of the Appeals Service to say appeal was lodged, and had phoned the Enquiry Line to ask about claiming while waiting for their appeal.

To be told ’ No you shouldn’t change from JSA to ESA otherwise if you loose the appeal you will have big problems you are much better off on JSA’.

Being a good hearted advice worker I assumed that the ‘Agent’ had got the wrong end of the stick and was possibly having an off day and thinking that ESA id paid at a higher rate than JSA so would run up an over payment if client lost the appeal. But no, client phoned them back only to be told - ‘Yes, you used to be able to do that but not allowed to do that any more. You have to stay on JSA’.

I phoned the enquiry line and ended up speaking to an ‘agent’ who explained at some length that well yes there was indeed some policy change earlier his year turned out to be 30th March but no details available other than now if ‘you’ appeal an ESA decision you can only get the reduced rate the first time you appeal. any subsequent appeal will not be entitled to any reduced rate payment. However, as this was my clients first appeal they would get the reduced rate.

After much Googling I think this has to relate to the ESA (Repeat Assessments and Pending Appeals Awards)  (Amendment) Regulations 2015 (S.I. 2015 No. 437 - Well worth a read

Basically comes down to if you appeal a CWA after 30/3/15 you wont get the reduced rate unless the condition has become significantly worse, or have a new diagnosis bring it into line with the 6 months fresh claim rules. The subsequent appeal bit will only apply if you had an earlier appeal that was not successful.

According to the rhubarb this is to allow all individuals the opportunity of taking advantage the additional help and guidance for those on JSA.

I am now going to sit under my desk with a mug of tea.

You might find this article from our April Welfare Rights Bulletin useful, it explains the changes and the impacts on ESA claimants.

ESA and abolition of the ‘six month rule’

Cheers Paul,

Spent most of the morning trying to track the ‘Change down’ should have checked with you first, but was in the grip of a full head of steam by the time I’d found the SI and ploughed through it.

Think main concern was now I’ve read the SI, and the other info such as your article I can kind of see where the DWP agents were coming from - but they missed the fact that my client wasn’t effected by the change any way. Will be watching out for this in the future anyway.

Neil

There are various worked examples in the DMG (I’m not promising they are actually correct):

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/419100/adm10-15.pdf

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/419103/adm11-15.pdf

Cheers for the help and pointers - calmed down now