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“We don’t accept ESA mandatory reconsideration requests over the phone”
Today I called DWP on behalf of a client because they:
1) haven’t had an ESA WCA decision confirmed in writing, after being told by phone 6 weeks ago, and
2) haven’t received a Mandatory Reconsideration Notice yet after requesting it by phone a week before xmas following initial advice. The client suffers from anxiety and has been trying to scrape by on a tiny occupational pension for the last 2 months. They are now overdrawn at the bank and direct debits are bouncing and they are spiralling into debt due to bank charges. Their health has been suffering as a result of the worry.
The person I spoke to at first told me that the client was notified of the decision in writing. I suppose it is possible that a letter could have gone missing in the xmas post, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt and asked for it to be re-issued. They then denied that they had received a call from the client requesting MR. When I insisted that such a call had been made (the client had called me directly afterwards to let me know they had done it) the story changed to “we don’t accept MR requests over the phone”. When I took issue with this the person told me that this was an order they had been given “by senior management”. When I asked for the regulation or guidance reference they just said this was what they had been instructed to do, so I asked to speak to a supervisor as we had clearly identified a training issue (and official error- how many people have they been saying this to?). After several minutes I was told that no supervisor was available because they were in a meeting, so I had to settle for a call back, which I don’t suppose for one moment I will get.
I had noted the name of the person I spoke to and the call centre. I feel a strongly worded complaint coming on…
Despite the clear advice here https://www.gov.uk/mandatory-reconsideration/how-to-ask-for-mandatory-reconsideration that you can and the encouragement on the front of their standard form to ring instead “It’s easier to call”