PIP phone offer following   mandatory reconsideration not received in writing

client refused PIP put   in mandatory reconsideration phoned   by PIP and   offered daily   living only - now   proceeding to Lower Tribunal no written offer re dail;y   living received any ideas? should she have   been   issued with   written   offer?

When you say no written offer do you mean that the MR decision doesn’t mention it or that no MR deicion has been issued?

A mandatory reconsideratrion   has been issued   but ithe offer is   not mentioned as part of the papers

So it’s affectively your client’s word against theirs as to the substance of the conversation. I wonder if the call was recorded? Might be worth requesting any records?

I fail to see w hy Lower Tribunal should boubt word of appellant (  although I would acknowledge   it does   occur

Well, as long as client is a credible witness I would agree, but it would be lovely to have the telephone record as incontrovertible confirmation of what was said.

I was at a Tribunal User Group in Edinburgh last year. There was a DWP representative from PIP Appeals/MR’s there and she said the same thing. They will make an offer to claimants at MR stage, but withdraw offer if the claimant wants a better award and insists on appealing.

I was quite surprised, but either everyone in the room was being timid or others didn’t see anything wrong with this practice

Strictly speaking, a MR decision with a partial award of PIP should still allow an appeal to go ahead, rather than ending the appeal anyway

Is there anything unlawful about it though?

If people are so up in arms about it maybe the best thing to do is accept the offered award then appeal it anyway; PIP might soon get the impression that there is a statutory mechanism there for a reason and stop trying to create loopholes.

Whatever “offer” was made is not binding on the tribunal in any way and I wouldn’t expect a tribunal to feel it is unable to decide the matter itself (subject to there being enough evidence to make a decision).

Not PIP, but I have received a submission on a Pension Credit overpayment today where the submission writer has asked the tribunal to make a parially revised decision (reducing amount of recoverable overpayment) but said the original decision was not revised as a more favourable decision would have lapsed the appeal and, in view of the grounds for appeal given, the client would have wished to dispute the new decision.

That is a sensible option once a right of appeal has arisen, but I would agree with Dan that the best thing to do is accept the “offer”, and then appeal against the “favourable” MR decision. It could always be open to the submission writer and / or tribunal to argue / decide that the rate awarded was wrongly awarded and that the appellant is entitled to nothing at all

I think it is sharp practice to “offer” an award, and then not make a decision to that effect, without further evidence to indicate that the “offer” should not have been made

While not identical, the situation is reminiscent of CSDLA/606/2003, where making a bargain was described as ‘appalling’.

My first MR for PIP last year ended with an offer from the DM to give care but no mobility due to the length of time the client had waited she accepted it

she didnt want a further year added to the process waiting for an appeal

In hindsight based on others 1 year was a bit excess I think it might have been 10 months approx

client is now being reassessed again after the initial award

The DM said to me that if refused they would say in the write up it had been offered but obviously it didnt progress further

At LT decision to   offer lower rate   confirmed; no mobility   offe3red.

Procedure v.similar to that   of DLA LT

Just to confirm… was there a concession that standard mobility should be awarded in the appeal papers before the First-tier Tribunal?

and… looking at reg 52(4) it looks like we have a new mechanism where the Sec State has a function to ask the appellant whether they would be happy with a partial revision then lapse the appeal.

52.—(1) An appeal against a decision of the Secretary of State does not lapse where—
(a)the decision is revised under section 9 of the 1998 Act before the appeal is decided; and .
(b)the decision of the Secretary of State as revised is not more advantageous to the appellant than the decision before it was revised. .
(2) In a case to which paragraph (1) applies, the appeal must be treated as though it had been brought against the decision as revised.
(3) The Secretary of State must inform the appellant that they may, within one month of the date of notification of the decision as revised, make further representations as to the appeal.
(4) After the end of that period, or within that period if the appellant consents in writing, the appeal to the First-tier Tribunal must proceed, except where—
(a)the Secretary of State further revises the decision in light of further representations from the appellant; and .
(b)that decision is more advantageous to the appellant than the decision before it was revised

I have an appeal on one of these cases coming up and was wondering about the dates that the Tribunal will consider as being relevant?

Claim made in 3/14, negative decision in 12/14, MR issued early 5/15. We appealed to Tribunal and within a few days DWP came back with an offer of SRM in late 5/15 which client accepted. HMCTS lapsed original appeal. We then appealed again asking for SRDL on top of the SRM award.

My understanding is that if his appeal is successful he will only be paid DLC from 5/15 as by accepting the award of SRM his appeal against the original decision lapsed. If this is right, I assume that means that the appeal will be looking at how he was in 5/15 at the time of the new decision rather than 3/14-5/15 when the original claim was decided? Or am I wrong about that?

If this is right, it will go against client who had series of heart attacks and pneumonia infections in 2013/14 and has been slowly improving since. The PIP2 was completed in 4/14 and the consultation was 11/14. I have been unable to get any medical evidence for how he was in 5/15.

The original decision which refused entitlement to both components must have been revised otherwise the appeal wouldn’t have lapsed.  The revised decision replaces the original decision with the result that standard mobility is payable from March 2014.  Hasn’t client received arrears to that date already?  There is an exception to this rule under Reg 21 D&A 2013 where the DM thinks there was a mistake with the effective date of the original decision but that doesn’t seem to apply here.  The tribunal will be looking up to but not beyond Dec 2014, ie the date of the original decision as revised, so it’s how the client was at that date which is important.