Huge ESA appeal backlog at Tribunal Services’ Birmingham Admin Centre

A client has just shown me a letter he has recieved with his TAS 1 Enquiry form which advises him that his ESA tribunal is unlikely to be listed before middle of January next year!!

His appeal is covered by the Birmingham Administrative Centre.

Not as bad at Liverpool administration centre yet but we’re getting there - appeals are taking longer and longer to be listed.

Dose anyone know how much of the delay is down to the Tribunals Service and how much to JCP response writers? I do know that in this area temporary premises taken on earlier in the year to ease venue difficulties in Reading are still being used months after they should have been vacated because of difficulty finding enough room. I also think that tribunal members are being drafted in from other regions and that there is a shortage of suitably qualified people. This was the case even before ESA got going in several areas - I was sitting a lot outside my usual area as early as spring 2009, long before more than one or two ESA tribunals came on line. An awful lot of these tribunals were IB/PCA appeals.

I understand that there is a desperate shortage of doctors to sit on tribunals.  We recently had an ESA tribunal cancelled at short notice because the medical member was ill, and TS was unable to find a substitute.

....and the Justice Department is trying to save £2bn.

What is going to give?