Another question!

One of my clients failed her PCA for IS and we appealed in July 2009. I recently queried why we had not received a hearing date yet and was told that there was a previous IS appeal pending; until it has been heard nothing else can be looked at. This appeal was submitted by my client (before I met her) in January 2009. Apparently the DWP have still not put in a submission; the Tribunal service say they last sent them a reminder on 8/2/10.

Because of this my client is still on appeal rate IS and is really struggling. I am seeing her this afternoon to get some more details about the earlier appeal but can anyone advise on how to push this forward with DWP/TTS? Given the time periods involved is the former appeal still valid?

Cheers

Assuming the issues in the prior appeal have a direct effect on the appeal that you submitted, I would ask for a judge to issue a direction that the secretary of state provide the submission within 14 days or the hearing will go ahead without it and the secretary of state will be barred from the proceedings.

I have used this tactic myself and the submission came through pretty quickly

The previous appeal related to a decision not to award benefit for a particular time period at the start of the claim in 2008 , so is not directly linked to the current appeal, which is about the PCA.
The only 'direct affect' is that my client has been trying to live on £52 pw for the last 10 months and it's making her even more ill. Could I still ask for a direction on those grounds?

You can certainly ask fro a direction on those grounds, although the delay in providing the submission for the first appeal is clearly unreasonable

Given that the previous appeal relates to a period in 2008, it is conceivable, though unlikely that it could affect the payment of the disability premium, but in my view there does not seem to be any reason to delay the second appeal