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

Exemptions from WCA? Appealable?

benefitsadviser
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Sunderland West Advice Project

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I have a client who has a personality disorder. He is angry and holds a grudge against DWP for “killing 40,000 people” and a grudge against society for allowing this to happen. Very angry indeed. and the DWP have been keeping him alive all these years. ho hum.

Anyway, due to his mental health he has been in the support group for about 9 years since migrating from income support.

He wishes to be exempt from future WCAs as he states his personality disorder will be lifelong, however ESA still call him in every 2 years for assessment.

I wrote to DWP last year asking that he be exempt as there is no prospect of him improving, but they completely ignored my request. They are assessing him again now and he is going ballistic, threatening allsorts. I wont advise MP involvement as he states everyone is corrupt unfortunately.

Does anyone have any experience of anyone being granted exemption under severe illness guidance, or whether this can be classed as an appealable decision?

Thanks

Elliot Kent
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Shelter

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It’s not an appealable decision as it has no impact on entitlement. If he doesn’t attend the assessment and benefit is stopped, then that decision could be appealed.

You could challenge the way the assessment is being conducted e.g. as an Equality Act complaint (failure to make reasonable adjustments to the usual processes by doing a paper based assessment).

The decision to call him for an assessment also potentially could be amenable to JR.

[ Edited: 22 Oct 2019 at 01:13 pm by Elliot Kent ]
Paul Stockton
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I think it’s a case for threatening JR, on the grounds that the decision maker cannot have taken the Secretary of State’s own guidance into account, and/or that, in the jargon, the decision is “Wednesbury unreasonable” ie no reasonable decision maker could have decided that way.

Dan_Manville
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He won’t meet the Severe Conditions Guidance without a score on schedule 3. Reg 35 doesn’t cut it.

Do you think he scores on schedule 3? You might be able to use the newly imposed SCG as a carrot to get him through the WCA this time, in the hope you could engineer SCG after the assessment.

However sched 3 requires daily “uncontrollable episodes of agressive or disinhibited behaviour” which is a pretty high bar where this condition is concened.

How old is he? Under 50 I wouldn’t even try to run an argument that this is likely to be permanent; up to 70% of people with a PD learn to manage their emotions by the time they’re in their 40s. I did run a case just last week where I provided a couple of studies demonstrating that and got a 10 year PIP award up from 2; said person was in their 50s though.

It’d be pushing it to get SCG for someone with a personality disrder though; the SCG mental health example envisages someone with a much greater degree of disability. Clozaril yet still some remaining deficit, lots of negative symptoms etc.

[ Edited: 22 Oct 2019 at 01:56 pm by Dan_Manville ]
Dan_Manville
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Oh, btw, if he’s seeing a CPN there’ll be enough evidence at the CMHT to persuade CHDA to do the assessment on the papers rather than calling him in for a F2F.

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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Dan Manville - 22 October 2019 01:55 PM

Oh, btw, if he’s seeing a CPN there’ll be enough evidence at the CMHT to persuade CHDA to do the assessment on the papers rather than calling him in for a F2F.

When I worked in a psychiatric hospital, people with PD weren’t treated by CMHT’s/CPN’s as they weren’t accepted as being “treatable”. Good to know that things have moved on a bit.

Dan_Manville
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Paul_Treloar_AgeUK - 22 October 2019 02:04 PM

When I worked in a psychiatric hospital, people with PD weren’t treated by CMHT’s/CPN’s as they weren’t accepted as being “treatable”. Good to know that things have moved on a bit.

Evidence of the growing psychological approach in mental health rather than the traditional biomedical approach which is still pretty useless for PD.