mike shermer
Welfare Benefits Officer, Kings Lynn & West Norfolk Borough Council, Kings l
Member since 23rd Jan 2004
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RE: IB APPEAL / ESA ISSUE
Fri 29-Jan-10 02:05 PM |
Before we get too excited, can you clarify whether "IB stopped in July / August due to IB50 not being received by DWP" meant literally that? If not, from here on in I'm merely waffling.
DWP operate an policy which says that if they send a letter to a customer it is deemed as having been recieved, unless they can prove it hasn't. I'm sure I've read at least one Comm's decision to that effect. Therefore to maintain the proverbial level playing field the same policy must be seen to be applied to letters sent to DWP, and the onus then falls upon them to prove that post had not been receieved.
I would be arguing, If your client is convinced beyond doubt that they did in fact post the form that, unless they can prove otherwise, the mail item was received and had since been mislaid by either the Royal Mail, the contracted out mail opening service or within the BDC itself. Bear in mind that Royal Mail admitted to losing 250,000 packages last year alone. Furthermore JCP are not blameless when transporting documents by Courier as we all know.
It follows that you could appeal on the grounds that they should not have s ended benefit on the grounds of non receipt of a form and that to imply that the form was never sent is unacceptable.
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