Refusal to supply full WCA decision to adviser even with explicit consent

A claimant who has limited abilities with IT and who finds it hard to deal with people she does not know sent us her WCA decision letter, which gave only generalised information about the process and said nothing about her individual case.

We requested a full copy of the decision and the medical report - and authorisation on the UC Journal specifically stated that the claimant wished this information to be provided to us.

DWP first of all didn’t reply for two months and then as of yesterday refused to supply us with the details, saying the claimant must ask for them, that they ‘cannot’ provide the full decision and are ‘not required’ to provide the medical report.

DWP must know full well that there are some claimants whose state of health means they cannot do this, at least not easily.

Does DWP have firm grounds of any sort for refusing to provide this information when specifically requested by the claimant to do so?

The “full decision” you are referring to is the written statement of reasons which your client has a right to request under reg 7(3)(b) D&A Regs and otherwise. The DWP are obliged to provide that within 14 days or as soon as practicable therafter so refusing to provide them entirely is unlawful.

The medical report is personal data around your client and they are fully entitled to request that under data protection law if nothing else. Your request does not need to be in a specific form and your client is entitled to request it through a rep as the ICO explains here:

https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/your-right-to-get-copies-of-your-data/preparing-and-submitting-your-subject-access-request/

So yes you could justifiably complain that the response is unlawful on two counts.

Thanks for that.

I have asked DWP to provide any reasons, technical or legal, why they cannot provide this information. Should be interesting.

You might find it more useful to complain, rather than request reasoning.
Refer DWP to relevant regs, or point to ICO.

Alternatively, just submit a SAR with the client. There’s an online process for it now.

With questions I think there is too much wiggle room for DWP to drag their feet.

This current imbrolglio is with the DWP Complaints Team. They are usually excellent, but they appear to be bogged down by UC’s impenetrable bureaucracy.