ESA Late appeals

Just thinking out loud here. We are getting more and more clients now turning up with their time limiting letters and on questioning them, it’s often apparent that (a) clients have never sought advice from anyone before and (b) they are totally unaware of the Support Group or how they could have qualified for it. They simply think they have passed a medical. DWP leaflet DWP1001 (ESA) makes no mention of groups at all.

Thinking about the whole process, including the decision letter, I don’t think there is any point at which the existance of the SG or its descriptors is revealed to claimants. They will clearly be ‘satisfied’ with the WRAG as they know no different.  Does it therefore follow that a late appeal could proceed on the basis (assuming WCA decision was within last 12 months) that a claimant could not resonably be expected to know whether they could have fiited into the Support Group?  I suspect the DWP/Tribunals Service would be very picky over such tactics in the context of the time-limiting, but it seems a valid argument to me.