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Mandatory Reconsiderations ESA needing to claim JSA
If the ConDems don’t flip/spin the current timetable (as is their want) does anyone share our unit’s worries concerning clients with MH, LD conditions failing their WCA from 28/10/2013 onwards?
Currently working through JSA regs to give Care Managers a heads up, especially after reading this response from the lovely Esther;
The right hon. Lady talked about other sources of benefit and funding for the claimant if they are not getting ESA. They would get JSA, and, quite rightly, should they need their conditionality reduced to claim JSA, that would happen. We appreciate that some people might have disabilities but still be able to work, and so will be subject to finding a job, although that may not be the job they wanted in the first instance. However, they could have the ability to work. If so, the support is there, but those claimants would have reduced conditionality. Again, it is about having a tailor-made service. Those claimants would be dealing with the disability employment adviser and all the benefit officers, who would have great knowledge about what those claimants could or could not do.
Cos that isn’t going to happen!
For the full Monty try:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmgeneral/deleg4/130903/130903s01.htm
Ms McVey’s ability to ignore plain facts and simply trot out what she was pre-programmed to say is astonishing. She will surely take the place of IDS when he is kicked upstairs this Autumn.
PS is she making the following up and/or is this all part of HMG’s belief that claimants and their reps deliberately hide evidence until it’s showtime, having waited a year or so for the privilege of doing so? -
‘We know for certain that only 15% of appeals are overturned on the decisions made. In fact, 56% of decisions are overturned because of new information coming to light that nobody, including the decision maker, has seen before’
- ?
‘We know for certain that only 15% of appeals are overturned on the decisions made. In fact, 56% of decisions are overturned because of new information coming to light that nobody, including the decision maker, has seen before’
There is no way that’s the real reason behind this. New evidence is refused anyway.
This is to stop people getting paid ESA so that they don’t appeal.There is no conceivable sane reason for doing it this way otherwise - if it wasn’t about that, they would have made sure people would still be paid throughout.
I’m extremely concerned - I gave a full submission on the futility of it to the consultation but they declared it ‘out of scope’ - the scope apparently being ‘in what ways do you like the idea?’.
‘They [ESA claimants] would get JSA, and, quite rightly, should they need their conditionality reduced to claim JSA, that would happen. We appreciate that some people might have disabilities but still be able to work, and so will be subject to finding a job, although that may not be the job they wanted in the first instance. However, they could have the ability to work. If so, the support is there, but those claimants would have reduced conditionality. Again, it is about having a tailor-made service. Those claimants would be dealing with the disability employment adviser and all the benefit officers, who would have great knowledge about what those claimants could or could not do.’
More worries - not just that we will have loads of people having to say, for the sake of form, that they are capable of work, but that it must remain open to question just what sort of ‘tailor-made service’ and reduced ‘conditionality’ (yuk!) they are going to get.
Also - in the light of ever-increasing appeals (or revisions, as they will be) do the DEAs know what is about to hit them? Are there sufficient of them to cope with the workload?
[ Edited: 13 Sep 2013 at 04:55 pm by Andrew Dutton ]We raised the practical / administrative issues about MR in WCA cases at a JCP stakeholder meeting a couple of weeks ago.
How will JCP handle a large volume (see the quarterly tribunal stats on todays news page!) of ESA to JSA claims and then back again following the revision decision (on the assumption few will actually be revised in favour). Given the possible delay in processing new JSA claims and then new ESA claims and that the DWP IT system cannot hold ‘live’ ESA & JSA claims at the same time (= large numbers of clerical claims?), the number of requests for STBAs the inevitable delays will generate, will JSA have sufficient PIs to deal with all the additional JSA claimants etc. etc. etc.
To say JCP had no idea what was about to hit them would be an understatement!
We have provided them with a detailed list of practical questions about situation that are going to arise at each stage of this ESA - JSA - ESA process. They have agreed to provide a detailed written response!
We await the response with interest! Will we receive it before 28 Oct?
Peter, I’m attending our local JC+ partnership meeting shortly to raise the same points. Can you send me a copy of yours mate? .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) Cheers
I have serious concerns about the policy full stop! I’ve made that clear over the months in this forum, and my frustrations that rightsnetters generally seem unaware or unconcerned with the implication of this change.
Our sectors response to it is disappointing. Either nobody else realises the implications or they’ve been duped by the DWP’s spin.
Oddly, the last change that impacted appeal rights so significantly was the 1998 SSA, which drew very considerably more criticism than mandatory reconsideration even though I think the the latter represents a more serious retrograde step for appeals and standards of benefit decision making.
I think this is probably because the SSA had to go through the whole ‘new’ law regime (green paper, white paper, consultation, etc), whereas this is a bit more back door.
I am a welfie baby compared to the likes of Tony Bowman amongst others, and welfare rights is not supposed to be my day job so apologies if some of the following is a trifle simplistic, but I do feel it’s about time we all stated what we are doing regarding mandatory recon and direct lodgement even if our hands are tied.
We wrote to our MP expressing our concerns and he forwarded our letter to Lord Freud whose response contains little we don’t already know. There is the usual “may be able to claim other benefits” without saying which ones and “people claiming JSA are able to discuss a short-term limitation on the benefit’s condition to be “actively seeking work” with a JC+ personal advisor when drawing up their JSAG.” We have discussed this with our local jobcentre who (whilst suspending my cynicism) genuinely did not realise the implications of this legislation or even know that it was happening. The sticking point is that although they can reduce conditionality if a claimant doesn’t fulfil the very lowest condition of actually turning up and signing on fortnightly, they have no option but to sanction the claimant. Lord Freud talks a lot about what can and cannot be done in law – conveniently failing to mention that it is this government that has brought in those very laws. On a practical point, we are approaching our local food bank and the county assistance scheme to prepare them for people who, because a decision maker got it wrong, have no income and need extra support. Our food bank, like most, only issues three food parcels a year and the county assistance scheme only steps in when all other sources of help – family, friends, charities, etc – have failed IF there is a proven need. Given the length of time recons are taking (and Lord F says in his response to us that that it would not be right to shorten this process) we felt that we needed to look at alternative support for our clients in order to address the practicalities of the situation. Interestingly, Lord F says that a trial took place between 17 June and 2 Aug involving over 400 recon and appeal requests “to test the new processes”. He also says “Calling claimants is not currently part of the reconsideration process” which doesn’t fit with our current experience. We have very grave concerns around the stated intention by JC+ to contact claimants by phone as does everyone else. Sheila Gilmore (MP for Edinburgh East) seems to understand the issue and has challenged Mark Hoban in parliament (see Hansard 6 Sep at 2.21) . She seems to be the only MP who understands the technicalities and is prepared to argue the toss. Maybe we should look to her? We can rant and quote dire client situations until the cows come home, but at the end of the day we need to change the law so getting an MP on board might be worth considering …………….
Over to the pros – I am well out of my comfort zone
I don’t think it’s simplistic at all, Stefrisk. I think you’re quite right in your approach.Thank you for sharing.
One of the many things which worries me is that even where the client does manage to successfully claim JSA whilst the reconsideration is ongoing, there is sure as hell going to be significant disruption to the client’s payments when client appeals against the unsuccessful reconsideration decision. You can just see it, can’t you- client lodges appeal and closes down JSA claim on basis ESA appeal rate is now payable but nothing happens. Local BC variously insists client has ‘lost their appeal’ and needs to claim JSA/they have not received confirmation from TS (especially in view of the current TS delays in logging/distributing post), that appeal has been lodged/client has open JSA claim, etc, etc, with the usual knock-on effect on HB/CTR. We/client will be spending even more time stuck on hold to the contact centre, not to mention playing piggy in the middle between TS and local BC.
The most offensive thing about this whole idea is that in ESA cases it will almost never make sense to submit any new evidence or argument at the MR stage. The sole aim will become to get the MR refused as fast as possible. If evidence were to be submitted it will just slow that down. So we’ll now have, for the first time, a situation where evidence really is deliberately withheld at an early stage!
Good point Mr Finch about not supplying MR evidence due to it slowing the process down.
I know that Michael Meacher MP is currently trying to convince the govt to pay ESA while recons happening but im not hopeful.
This may be worth a read. Love the concept of making MPs take the WCA!
The Hansard discussion (thanks for pointing this out!) -
is enlightening in that the MP clearly has a grip on the relevant issues, but the Minister is reading from the same script as his colleague and he has nothing to offer but hollow complacency. The system will be monitored for 6 months and people may claim hardship payments. Cheers, youth.
So we are left with the practical problems that are well outlined above. Perhaps we should do some ‘monitoring’ too, and keep one another informed. Time to talk to JC+ about the day-to-day realities too.
Remember them saying that advice services may be got rid of because of the ‘simpler’ system?
Apologies I started another thread on this.
I’ll cross link in a bit.
Due to various commitments I’m a bit late to spot the impending change but to say that it’s brown trousers time is a bit of an understatment; especially the lack of upward referral for late applications for revision. With a poitical will to get appeal numbers down there’s a clear mechanism how to achieve that here.
I can almost guarantee I will scare my social work colleagues when I introduce this at the team meeting tomorrow.
my current role is with a charity supporting those with a learning disability so I have huge concerns about this, pretty much the same ones I had as a generic local authority wro though.
this change is a clear attempt by the government to hinder peoples appeal rights in my opinion and they are throwing up practical barriers to already disadvantaged people. This is going to be bad enough for all clients but for particularly vulnerable groups the implications are even worse.
If anyone has a suggestion about what we can do to cause a fuss about this I am happy to take part? perhaps a group effort from rights net, CPAG, council wro’s and charities may be needed?
as an aside to main thrust this thread has given me a thought.
say a client with a partner is on conts based ESA and has a partner who works ft earning enough for no means tested benefits to apply. client gets cut off esa and does mandatory review but claims jsa to ensure income during this process.
2 months latet clients mandatory review is refused and he appeals, so ESA conts based restarts? client goes to appeal and wins….few months later his 12 months is up so no payment of ESA.
now ordinarily in these circumstances you could advise to claim jsa conts based and likely to qualify as claiming after a period of LCW….in this case though could a client potentially lose out on the conts based jsa option as they may be reusing a tax year they have already claimed conts based jsa on?
I hope this rambling makes some sort of sense. may be totally wrong as its only just occurred to me as I read this thread.
In this scenario wouldn’t we argue that the conts JSA claim would be voided essentailly as the consts ESA claim was reinstated and therefore the client would be good to go re a new JSA claim? If the voiding of the JSA claim doesnt happen then working out the 365 days of conts ESA will be a nightmare as it will not be a continouous period.
If that doesnt work - I think they would get whats left of the 6 months entitlement to conts JSA - so if the Mandatory Reconsideration stage takes one month (la la land I know) that would leave 5 months of entitlement left? This would be the case if someone is found fot for work post tribunal.
Does this make any sense?