First PIP claim

I helped a client to make a complaint to ATOS (and the DWP) last week. The lady I spoke to at ATOS became quite agitated and said “The government doesn’t realise how many people will be eligible for PIP”.

Make of that what you will….

Edit

Miriam M - 25 September 2013 10:35 PM

The date of claim is the date of the phonecall to make the claim and you then get the month to complete the PIP2 . Someone else can call on your behalf as long as they pass the identification security questions . The thing to remember is that until the call is made nothing is built on the computer system , so if you send in a paper claim without the phonecall and we(DWP) haven’t issued it and it is scanned but has no identifier , there is no claim to match that form to and it is very likely to cause delay . Because it is now a paperless system the scanned form cannot be referred on to the assessment provider until it is all built electronically into a claim . There is more likelihood of a claim going awol this way . I would also not advise sending mail to any other addresses you may have had for benefits centres or Blackpool because all PIP mail comes into the system via the mail opening unit which is a completely different stream from DLA mail and will again only delay the claim and risk it getting lost .

Thanks Miriam.

Just fishing for more process info now, but what happens if you write to the Wolverhampton address on gov.uk (which is the mail opening unit) and state that you wish to claim PIP, including a request for a paper form and explaining that you can’t use a phone to claim? Do they build a claim on the system at the point they issue a (presumably personalised) PIP 1 form, or do they forward it elsewhere?

On training courses thus far, I have been pointing out the likelihood of a delay - you can see above in this thread the anecdotal evidence of problems getting paper forms - and also that gov.uk is not entirely explicit about the Wolverhampton address being the correct one to write to: https://www.gov.uk/pip/how-to-claim

I’m also interested in how the comment that ‘someone else can call on your behalf as long as they pass the security questions’. That makes perfect sense if someone is requesting a paper form.
However, for a claim completed in accordance with instructions over the phone, unless the claimant has actually been on the phone at some point and said ‘Yes, I want to claim PIP’, this seems to sit a bit uncomfortably alongside Reg 11(7) and (8) of the UC, PIP &c Claims and Payment Regulations (SI 2013/380):

(7) Paragraph (8) applies where—
(a)a person (“P1”) makes a claim for personal independence payment on behalf of another person (“P2”) whom P1 asserts to be a person unable for the time being to act; and
(b)the Secretary of State makes a decision not to appoint P1 under regulation 57.
(8) The Secretary of State must treat the claim made by P1 as properly made by P2 in the first instance if a further claim made by P2 is received within one month, or such longer period as the Secretary of State may consider reasonable, from the date the Secretary of State notified the decision not to appoint P1 under regulation 57.

I guess if an adviser doesn’t assert that their client is unable to act (just says that they can’t complete a claim over the phone) then the above doesn’t bite, but I’m struggling to get my head round how it is actually a claim wihtout any input from the client. I read this as being required by s1 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 (except in terminal illness cases, of course, where s1(3) applies).

I know that this is a fairly nippy question, but I’m genuinely interested in the answer, rather than raising objections for the sake of it. As you’ll see above, there are lots of reports of difficulties, different approaches by different staff, etc as advisers have tried to support clients to use the telephone claims process.

Thanks in advance for any further info you can provide. If you happen to be able to convince the high heidjins that this is the sort of process detail that it is worth making public on gov.uk, then I’m sure that the users of this forum would be eternally grateful…

Jon

Edit .

Requesting a Paper Claim in writing :

The address on this page https://www.gov.uk/pip/how-to-claim has now been amended to show the correct address to send requests to .

Apologies, I have been advised that the information previously posted may not be compatible with the DWP code of practice I have therefore removed it .

Miriam M - 26 September 2013 04:18 PM

I imagine you are now wishing you hadn’t asked.

Not in the least. I am very grateful, and there are some really interesting bits of information in there about how the process should work. I will try to distill it all into what I think gov.uk should say about claims in writing, and post it up here so you can comment on how close I’ve got…

Cheers,

Jon

Thank-you Miriam - your posts are very helpful and shed some light on queries our local DWP Partnership Officer has struggled to answer/get answers for.

2 weeks ago, one of our advisers rang with a client to start a PIP claim, we were advised that the PIP2 would be there in 7 - 10 days. Client back in today, we rang to ask if the form was in its way.. no, because the client apparently failed a security question in the initial call, and the client will be receiving a letter to that effect. Shouldn’t we have been told in the initial call that we’d failed security?

no comment from esther mcvey in response to parliamentary question about number of non special rules PIP claims made and awarded -

‘Dr Whiteford: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many non-special rule PIP claims have been applied for, processed and awarded (a) since introduction of the pilot schemes in April 2013 and (b) since PIP was introduced in June 2013. [169486]

we intend to publish Official Statistics on personal independence payment from spring 2014 onwards.’

here’s link to yesterday’s hansard -

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm131008/text/131008w0007.htm

I went to a DWP stakeholder meeting yesterday and asked why there were virtually no non-special rules PIP decisions or indeed medicals apparent. The reason I was given was that they are holding on for the outcome of the consultation on mobility which I was told was due within the next few days.

But what after that? More delay while decisions are re-framed if the government changes the rules (again)? Or a mega-flood of decisions?

Andrew Dutton - 09 October 2013 04:22 PM

I went to a DWP stakeholder meeting yesterday and asked why there were virtually no non-special rules PIP decisions or indeed medicals apparent. The reason I was given was that they are holding on for the outcome of the consultation on mobility which I was told was due within the next few days.

But what after that? More delay while decisions are re-framed if the government changes the rules (again)? Or a mega-flood of decisions?

Aah is this the 20m v 50m debate?
i wondered what the hold up was.
We’ve got someone from DWP coming to ‘share’ some further updates on PIP and UC next week, so will try and get some further info.
On the other hand - i don’t know if anyone else has found this but my colleagues and I have found DLA renewal decisions and AA decisions to be quite lenient, in particular without much need for medicals…

I went to a DWP meeting in Exeter yesterday and was told that PIP claims are being double checked for quality (the assessment side I guess). And that the mobility consultation outcome was not the reason for the delays. Was also told that the 28/10 date for substituting PIP claims for DLA supersessions (etc.) ‘might slip’ if the 20m walking distance is changed.

Confused? We will be!

We’ve had one client so far who has been notified of assessment appointment. Still no decisions here.

We’ve had one decision. Just the one.

I contacted Capita to ask for details of their examination centres in our area - got two replies saying they would reply in 2 working days, no reply, 3 weeks on.

Emailed Atos for details of their home visits policy and, after prompting, got this -

‘As we are contracted to complete the assessments on behalf of the DWP, we do not own any of the data. Therefore we are unable to provide copies of policies/procedures or guidelines.’

Sigh.