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MR number 2

Mike Hughes
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Senior welfare rights officer - Salford City Council Welfare Rights Service

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PIP claim which results in some points but no award. Aim is for standard rate DL and enhanced rate MC and a 10 year award. MR done with advice from me and results in medium term award of DL and MC at standard rate. Arrears paid and benefit put into payment. Client decides they want to appeal with my help. Appeal acknowledged by HMCTS. Awaiting bundle. Letter then arrives to claimant from DWP thanking client for their request to look again (an MR apparently) and advising that having looked again they have decided they can only award MC at standard rate. Client doesn’t have to pay back arrears! Basis for this MR is not new evidence. It’s a reference to the HCP report and an assertion that the claimant shouldn’t score for engagement as they work part-time! Next payment is 3 weeks plus so we can’t tell yet whether this is someone pressing the wrong button on the wrong letter.

Thoughts on specific next actions?

I’m about to check in with HMCTS to ensure that the appeal is live but also to see whether they are aware of a subsequent decision. Next stop DWP but it’s a long time since I’ve had something as idiotic as this so I’d welcome the input.

Elliot Kent
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If we take the words “mandatory reconsideration” out of it.

PIP is refused, your client asks for an any grounds revision which is partly successful. Your client is still unhappy and appeals. Because there is an appeal, the DWP are entitled to revise their decision further under reg 11(1) of the D&A Regs and they have done that.

Because the decision has been revised, but not to the claimant’s advantage, the procedure from reg 52 of the D&A Regs applies.

That procedure explains that the claimant must be given a month in which to make any comments to the SSWP (52(3)) after which - if the decision has not been further revised , then the appeal proceeds against the decision as revised (52(2) & (4)).

So I suppose you have to follow that process.

Mike Hughes
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Senior welfare rights officer - Salford City Council Welfare Rights Service

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Thanks Elliot. Appreciate the speed (although in the time you and I posted I am still on hold to HMCTS. Ringing them as a precaution).

Not had one where this occurred for years so completely unaware of the process. Fine example of a “no brainer” i.e. client will come out with the rates I predict.

Mike Hughes
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Senior welfare rights officer - Salford City Council Welfare Rights Service

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Sorry. Trying unsuccessfully to do four things at once this morning.

If they further revise back to the original MR award I presume the appeal proceeds?
If they decline to revise so the new decision stands what happens then? New appeal needed?

Elliot Kent
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Ha, I am pleased that I could be faster than the HMCTS phone line. 

The appeal will proceed against the decision as revised unless the decision is further revised in a way which is “more advantageous to the appellant than the decision before it was revised.”

So if they put it back to SR/SR for the same length of time, then the appeal carries on.

I have no idea why the procedure in reg 52 exists as it seems to be an unnecessary complication, but there you go.

Mike Hughes
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Senior welfare rights officer - Salford City Council Welfare Rights Service

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Elliot Kent - 25 September 2019 11:15 AM

Ha, I am pleased that I could be faster than the HMCTS phone line. 

The appeal will proceed against the decision as revised unless the decision is further revised in a way which is “more advantageous to the appellant than the decision before it was revised.”

So if they put it back to SR/SR for the same length of time, then the appeal carries on.

I have no idea why the procedure in reg 52 exists as it seems to be an unnecessary complication, but there you go.

But are you saying that if they don’t put it back to SRx2 then it also proceeds?

Elliot Kent
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Yes - the appeal will only lapse if at the end of this whole process your client has something better than they had before they lodged the appeal.

In any other circumstance, their appeal will continue after the reg 52 speed bump is complete.

Mike Hughes
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Elliot Kent - 25 September 2019 11:22 AM

Yes - the appeal will only lapse if at the end of this whole process your client has something better than they had before they lodged the appeal.

In any other circumstance, their appeal will continue after the reg 52 speed bump is complete.

Cheers. Sorry. Fuzzy head.