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Is this possible?

Timothy Seaside
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Housing services - Arun District Council

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C claims UC 30 August 2018. C finally gets WCA in April 2019. C chases up LCW decision for a few months but then gets transitional SDP payment in August 2019 and thinks this means they have agreed she can’t work so stops chasing LCW decision. In March 2020 C finally gets a decision that she doesn’t have LCW, she disputes this but this isn’t treated as MR request. In October 2020 a very helpful man at local JC+ submits MR and starts new WCA process in November. In March 2021 C gets LCWRA decision back to November. Now C comes to me. I chase up MR of March 2020 decision and last week C receives MRN for the March 2020 decision: they have decided she has LCWRA but, and this is the bit I don’t understand, they explicitly state that it only applies from March 2020 to November 2020. So not from the date when she told them she couldn’t work, and not from the date of the WCA but from the date of the (very tardy) original decision.

I am thinking the March 2020 decision was that C didn’t have LCW starting from 30 August 2018, so how is it possible for a reconsideration to conclude that she did have LCWRA at the date of the decision, but not at the date of the WCA or the start of the WCA process? It seems mad. Obviously we’ll be appealing, but I just wonder if anybody can explain if such a MRN decision could ever be correct?

HB Anorak
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Benefits consultant/trainer - hbanorak.co.uk, East London

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Not a plausible explanation for this case, but in terms of what is legally possible as a matter of adjudication law, I think the principle of considering circumstances “down to the date of the decision” would allow DWP to conclude on the strength of a single WCA that the claimant did not have LCRWA in 2018 but did have it by the time the decision was made and so a superseding decision is interposed into the adjudication history from the date on which the claimant first developed LCWRA - by an amazing coincidence, immediately before they made the first negative decision.

Elliot Kent
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Shelter

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Was the client on ESA with LCW before claiming UC - so that the March 2020 decision was a supersession subject to effective date rules?

Just going for guesses!

Timothy Seaside
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Housing services - Arun District Council

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Elliot Kent - 23 April 2021 02:20 PM

Was the client on ESA with LCW before claiming UC - so that the March 2020 decision was a supersession subject to effective date rules?

Just going for guesses!

No, she claimed UC after her IS ended. And in fact there are endless journal entries about the need to keep providing sick notes until she gets a WCA and decision.

HB Anorak; as you say, that wouldn’t really be plausible in this case. I suspect they mislaid the WCA report - it’s clear from her journal entries that C felt the HCP had given her every reason to suppose she was going to get LCWRA. The original no LCW decision was incredibly brief, and the MRN only refers to her more recent LCWRA decision and the fact she’s getting PIP - no mention at all of the WCA.

 

 

 

Elliot Kent
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Timothy Seaside - 23 April 2021 04:27 PM
Elliot Kent - 23 April 2021 02:20 PM

Was the client on ESA with LCW before claiming UC - so that the March 2020 decision was a supersession subject to effective date rules?

Just going for guesses!

No, she claimed UC after her IS ended. And in fact there are endless journal entries about the need to keep providing sick notes until she gets a WCA and decision.

HB Anorak; as you say, that wouldn’t really be plausible in this case. I suspect they mislaid the WCA report - it’s clear from her journal entries that C felt the HCP had given her every reason to suppose she was going to get LCWRA. The original no LCW decision was incredibly brief, and the MRN only refers to her more recent LCWRA decision and the fact she’s getting PIP - no mention at all of the WCA.

Just arbitrary nonsense then?