DLA renewal cancelled as forms not received

Hello there,

Client had a DLA award that was due to end last year. She completed her renewal form and returned it before the date the original award was due to end. Unfortunately the form was not received and client did not chase up until her original award had ended. When she chased she was told that her DLA claim had ended and as such could not be renewed and that all she could do was to make a new claim for PIP (a new claim has been made but client tells me that she has sent back two PIP2s that have not been received).

My understanding is that this is correct - the renewal form is technically an advance new claim rather than an extension of the original claim. If a new claim is never received then there is no negative decision to challenge. The decision to close the original claim was correct - it would have ended whether the renewal form was received or not. There are no provisions to backdate new DLA claims, and in London these cannot be made anyway.

So all I can see is for the client to try sending a DLA claim form (can these even still be printed out??) with a covering letter complaining that the original form was lost by the DWP and asking that the claim form be treated as having been received when it was originally sent, which would enable DWP to consider it as a renewal request. My feeling is that this course of action has little prospect of success.

Is the above correct? Client is coming in on Friday and has received advice from another adviser that she should make a late mandatory reconsideration request of the decision to end her DLA claim. She is very keen to follow this advice and to try and get back onto DLA and I want to be sure of my footing before I advise her that this is not a realistic option and that we need to concentrate on progressing her PIP claim.

I agree with you Sam - there is no decision to end her DLA, so you cannot MR it. Whilst you can sometimes seek supersession of old decisions to good effect (I have done it with overpayments), it won’t help here in my view.  I had a similar case last year, and we had to go down the PIP route - DWP refused to accept that the claim had been received in time (the client’s duplicate form was received after the original award ended)

I don’t suppose she’s had another DLA decision made in the last 13 months that could be appealed to have the award period extended?

I’ve received conflicting advice on whether the decision to stop DLA constitutes an appealable decision or not. If payments have stopped, is that not a decision? It’s certainly not seen as one within DWP. You could give it a go asking for reconsideration and see what the DWP comes back with. You never know, in the appeal bundle there might be a record of the renewal form being received but lost/not dealt with.

If she’s claimed PIP, the benefits of a DLA award are limited anyway as when PIP’s decided, it will replace any existing DLA award in any event.

I think there is some confusion here Edmund - when DLA is awarded for a fixed period, it is simply that - a fixed period with a start and end date. It requires no further decision to stop the DLA, so there is no later decision to revise. If you ask the DWP to MR the decision to stop DLA, I think you would be told the same, there is no decision to reconsider. You can seek supersession of a decision to award DLA for a fixed period, but need to identify the grounds - was original decison made in ignorance of a material fact, or has there been a relevant change of circumstances during the period of the award - but the effective date of a supersession (if accepted) will be the date the application is made, unless there are grounds for late notification of a change of circumstances. As that date will now after the end of the DLA award, I doubt the DWP will entertain payment of DLA on a succesful supersession request where late notification of a change of circumstances is not accepted - even if they did, there would be a gap between the end of the DLA original DLA award and ongoing payment under the new decision.

I think that, unless you actually had a very clear change of circumstance (for example, a stroke), and a very good reason for late notification of that change of circumstances, the supersession request would not get anywhere. Indeed, I think the DWP would take so long to deal with the application (even if they were to accept that you actually can do this), that the client would have had the chance to get PIP assessed and paid. The pragmatic solution is to apply for PIP