Fri 14-Mar-08 05:05 PM by iut044

Hi

I was talking to another adviser today who said that presenting officers were less likely to attend Incapacity Benefit appeals compared to DLA hearings. Why is this? I would have thought that it would have been the other way around with the DWP keen to reduce the amount of people claiming Incapacity Benefit.

Thanks

On the whole there are no separate offices dealing with IB. It will be someone from JCP and probably the only experienced POs available are taken up with mixed days of IS/JSA overpayments, R2R cases, backdating, failure to attend interviews, failing to apply for jobs etc. Not that you see a lot of them there either.

In 12 years of expereince dealing with IB tribunals, I don't think I can remember a PO attending - only on overpayments or issues around exempt work, not on the PCA. Certainly not for years, anyway. Mind you, at the venue I most often attend, any POs are vanishingly rare except in HB/CTB

In our case we rarely see either but as for the ICB the appeals are in Chippenham Wiltshire and the DM s are 190miles away in St.Austell, having said that when the DM was in Chippenham 1/2 mile a way the individual always refused to attend.Which was a shame as many a Chairman wanted to question his odd/strange submissions.