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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Work capability issues and ESA  →  Thread

Standards of decision making in both ESA and UC

Andrew Dutton
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Welfare rights service - Derbyshire County Council

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Total Posts: 1955

Joined: 12 October 2012

Claimant was on IRESA, Support Group.

On 25/4/18 he was found fit for work, lost IRESA, bounced on to UC, told to look for work etc.

ESA went to appeal.

On 1/8/18 he was also found fit for work on UC - the decision letter contained no information at all about how the decision was made, just a generalised leaflet about the WCA.

UC MR requested, along with a copy of the full decision and score sheet etc.

No response. Complaint made. No response. Complaint escalated. No response.

Last week, ESA was restored to Support Group on appeal.

How is it that ESA and then UC can award no points, then suddenly the claimant is back in the SG where he began - but of course in the meantime he has been moved to UC with no way back?

That was a rhetorical question. There was of course no change in his condition throughout.

ESA/UC are not just getting it wrong, they are getting it wrong on a grand scale with some claims. And UC’s refusal to part with details of how their decision was made just adds to the problem.

I assume the lack of information from UC is a device to push people in to phoning for an explanation…...

 

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

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Total Posts: 3138

Joined: 17 June 2010

A request for specific documents and decisions on a (non-UC) case I’m running at present, where authorisation is already documented, has resulted in DWP sending out what appears to be a blank Subject Access Request form for completion. Putting aside this being just another bureaucratic barrier it struck me that this has a number of advantages should the matter proceed to appeal. It will be interesting to see if they now comply with my request. It strikes me that a deluge of FOI requests on a UC claim will soon focus minds.