Curious coda to MR Notice

Claimant was in Support Group - has new WCA , zero points awarded.

Requests MR, complains that DWP have not contacted his GP or specialist.

MRN contains a paean of praise for the value of HCP evidence, implicitly admitting that no other evidence has been sought or looked at.

At the end of the MRN, in bold, come these words :

‘Please be aware that it is not too late to provide us with further information or evidence,. If having read our mandatory reconsideration response you have any further evidence that you wish to be considered, which might affect the outcome,  please submit it to us as soon as possible.  If you are querying a specific descriptor, tell us how you find this activity difficult and how it affects your typical day, if it varies tell us how. Please also provide specific examples if appropriate.’

This may have been helpful advice at the decision stage, but not now…!

Are we now looking at a ‘post-MR’ MR???

Interestingly I have had a few cases where we provided additional information at the SSCS1 stage (normally we would do this earlier but often the client doesn’t approach us until a later stage or we have been unable to obtain evidence prior to this).

The appeal has been accepted and I am assuming at the stage where the DWP are providing their response they have then changed the decision and lapsed the appeal.

This has also (only once) happened where we didn’t provide additional evidence.

Since the information was published that the DWP had targets to uphold 80% of MR requests we are seeing an increase in successful MR’s. Don’t know how long this is likely to last though!