I have just had an appt re DLA renewal and was expecting the usual form, essentially the same as the intital claim form. Instead, the client had this form DLA 580 September 2009 which all we had to do was answer the question 'has anything happened that may make a difference to how much help you need or how much money you get' and sign the back (there were no changes in this case).

The form was only 4 pages long and had no room for details of medical people etc. Really just the question above and if there had been any changes, space to write down what they were and when they occurred.

Can anyone shed any light on what is going on here?

These are the new shortened re-application forms, being rolled out as part of the PDCS improving customer experience programme. Instead of the usual large packs that we are aware off.

There should also be a space to indicate that there has been "no change in circumstance", which should lead to a continuation of the orginial award.

Thanks for the reply. I managed to find this and see the form is only being used in a few areas.

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/newsletter-dcs-oct09.pdf

Renewing this way seems far too generous for the Govt. Is it really the position that all renewal claims with these forms, where there has been no changes indicated, will be successful?

"Where there has been no changes indicated, will the renewal be successful?"

This is quite clearly the million dollar question, as yet we have not had a great deal of evidence to say that it will, but renewals going through the old process are still seeing the same failure rate or reduction in award from previous levels.

As we all know, these are frequently turned around at either recon or Tribunal stages, but realistically should not even get to this stage, unless there has been a dramatic change in medication provision or circumstance that can be argued by DWP as a consideration for offering an improvement to a persons condition.

As i have said so many times before in this forum, we still get renewal cases of profoundly deaf claimants receiving a nil award, whose first language is BSL or lip-speaker. Where they have previously received MRC or both MRC and LRC.