ESA Support Group & Work Focused Interviews

Has anybody else come across this situation:

I have just won the appeal for a client to be placed into the support group of ESA. However, she has been told by A4E that she still has to attend the work focused interviews as the law changed last month. She was told that she cannot get out of going to the sessions unless she has a different sickness to her sick note?

Can anyone point me to the regs for this?

Thanks

I’d ask A4E what regs they’re using as i’m not aware that there’s been a change, so reg 54 of the ESA regs still applies…..unless someone else knows different?

No the regs have not changed but we have found that WP providers in this area do not understand what being in the support group means. As far as they are concerned the rule is that once a claimant has been referred to the WP they are in it for 2 years. Also they don’t seem to get notified very quickly or at all by DWP that someone has moved into the support group.

What should happen is that the claimant is notified that any further involvement is voluntary. if a claimant in this situation simply ignores any letters/invitations etc from their WP provider after they have been placed in the support group they should not be sanctioned. And if they are they should of course appeal and I would hope it would be fairly straightforward to get the sanction lifted without it having to get to a hearing.

I would hope they wouldn’t be sanctioned in the first place but I’m not especially confident.

Thanks for that.

I was quite alarmed after the phone call from my client, and looked everywhere but could not find any changes whatsoever.

I guess this is just another classic example of the clients being able to take on the likes of the DWP/A4E without any free legal advice out there….

It happened fairly recently to one of my clients too.

I wrote to the WP provider concerned (enclosing copy of the tribunal decision and spelling it out) and copied local BC on the letter. As far as I know, it was sorted out.

The main problem is how the mandatory work program is administered with regard to payment to the work providers.
After 13 weeks the work provider get a small amount of cash if the claimant is still undertaking the activity.
After 26 weeks they get a little bit more.
After 39 week they get a hell of a payout, so they will probably try any trick in the book (including threats etc) to try and keep the ESA claimant onboard for 39 weeks.
Its all about the money im afraid.