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i assume your client has a life award of IIDB. the DWP appear to be throwing its weight around, when in fact, it is seeking your client's help to rectify it's administrative failure. your client has already complied with the legal requirements to claiming, and been given a life award. he should not have to attend a further medical, and imo should not have to complete a further IIDB claim form. REA i think requires renewal claims and are finite awards, so he will probably have to complete a new form.
DWP should be able to tell you what steps _it_ has taken to enable a reconstruction of the missing file. i'm not sure what computer records they might be expected to have on DisBen awards - i'm out of touch - but you can ask them. there should be records of the instrument of payment elsewhere besides on the missing file.
there also ought to be a clerical case file for him somewhere, (known as a GBU)which is not the same as the missing file (BI 2). The GBU ought to contain a document called a benefit history sheet, which is a 'not for destruction' document. Those documents have fallen into disuse since computerisation, but from 20 years ago, the details of an IIDB award should have been entered on the BHS.
it's also likely that the renewal of an REA award has taken place in the last 1 to 3 years, and if this still involves clerical action (recording the award on the BI 2) the DWP could cross-check the decision-maker's record sheet of decisions (LT51 ?). the awards often coincide with the expiry of the order book, so your client might be able to help pinpoint the month.
since the DWP became enamoured of contracted out remote storage around 10 years ago, modifying their ...ahem...destruction policies, this info might not be much help at all, but it might be worth asking if they have looked.
the point is, the DWP have lost his file and failed to protect his data, and if they are saying to you that he must complete a new form and attend a medical, then they are also saying that the DWP has a wholly inadequate record- keeping system in place, placing claimant's interests and public funds at risk. it should be inconceivable that the only evidence of your client's entitlement is to be found in the missing file. what kind of audit system should accept that? this is a serious administrative failure and the DWP is accountable for it. yet it has placed the rectification of the failure of its systems onto your client. why should that be acceptable?
it is not improbable that the DWP has done very little to look for evidence to enable the reconstruction, approaching your client as a first resort not a last resort. I think Nicky's approach, above, is appropriate, and the DWP's approach is totally inappropriate.
i suspect however, that they will be very uneasy about not having a signed claim from him, and they will want him to complete a new one. the old one was much shorter, incidently. since any form he completes now will not support the payments made to him for the last 20 years, it would make more sense if he made a statement to the effect that he made a properly completed claim in whenever, giving what details he is able of his awards, and the d/accident, employer etc, leaving it to a rep of the sec of state to place a record in his new file recording the loss of original documents and accepting that a valid claim and awards were made. there should be sufficient secondary evidence available to the Sec of State to accept that it is so, and the interim payments being made suggest that they don't actually doubt it.
jj
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