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Get It Right Which Time?
In light of http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/news/story/fewer-benefit-appeals-going-to-tribunal-is-welcome-news-says-dwp
Is it just me or is “Getting more decisions right the first time avoids the need for protracted tribunal appeals.” complete and utter…
MR is not an improvement in the decision making process. It is getting it right second time. The standard of adjudication itself remains as poor as ever.
Just needed to get that off my chest!
Tut tut; you don’t understand at all.
It is getting the reconsideration right first time!
This is why it’s important to get decisions *wrong* in the first place. If that didn’t happen then there would be no reconsiderations. In order to have a good quality of reconsiderations then it’s essential to have a statistically valid number to assess. If there weren’t enough wrong decisions then DWP wouldn’t be able to prove how good the new process was in a way which would satisfy auditors and standards bodies.
It’s all very simple.
Are there any stats anywhere on what percentage of decisions have been changed as a result of MR? I’ve seen a few changes in points on the LCWA and the like but can’t think of any that have actually overturned the original decision.
No -
DWP saying that data is being collected but don’t give date for when it will be published - saying that info has to be sufficiently robust for purposes of official statistics - see minutes of last week’s Work and Pensions Committee oral evidence session with DWP - q509 onwards -
However, Mike Penning says will try and get update on this for Sheila Gilmore’s Westminster Hall debate on mandatory reconsideration which is happening this evening, so let’s see if that reveals any more….
Is anyone else noticing this trend?
You ask for a reconsideration which is turned down; you then go for appeal; the DWP use this as another bite of the cherry and decide to change their decision at this point.
Is this another way of massaging MR/appeal figures?
How can they say that when they can’t say how many decisions are changed at MRC stage, the downturn in appeals is more likely down to the fact that they have made it too complicated, so claimants either accept the decision (does that make it ‘right’) or accept the MRC as they have lost the will to live by then. They need to show that MRC are successful because they do obtain more information/evidence, the very reason they are now there (regardless of the fact that this would happen anyway even in the old appeal process). Don’t you just love LA appeals that remain straightforward.
The principal reason for the downturn in appeals is the cessation of reviews of peoples’ capability for work and the virtual absence of the predicted deluge of PIP appeals.
The principal reason for the downturn in appeals is the cessation of reviews of peoples’ capability for work and the virtual absence of the predicted deluge of PIP appeals.
And the stockpiled 700,000 ESA assessments might have something to do with it….
Isnt this just the coalition all over. Adding 1+1 and concluding that the answer is anything but 2?
No relation between welfare reform and 1 million food bank users, and now they say there is a reduction in the amount of appeals since scrapping the automatic right to appeal.
Any idea Sherlock??
I still dont see the difference between MR and the old GL24 anyway. The decision was always looked at again anyway once the DWP got a GL24 in my experience.
More smoke and mirrors
Isnt this just the coalition all over. Adding 1+1 and concluding that the answer is anything but 2?
No relation between welfare reform and 1 million food bank users, and now they say there is a reduction in the amount of appeals since scrapping the automatic right to appeal.
Any idea Sherlock??I still dont see the difference between MR and the old GL24 anyway. The decision was always looked at again anyway once the DWP got a GL24 in my experience.
More smoke and mirrors
The difference is that there’s no way they’re letting claimants get near an appeal hearing if they can help it. That’s the whole agenda. There are limited circumstances in which you can dismiss tribunal members but starving them of work certainly drives them away.
We’ve done the reasons to death in other threads but the frustration for me is not so much that MR prevents appeals and more that it is producing appalling decisions which at some point in the future will be held against clients.
So, the ESA claimant who clearly scores points on 5 activities gets nothing on first claim but scores 15 on MR. Unfortunately their MR derives the 15 from maybe 2 or 3 activities and, going forward, this informs future decisions. Any attempt in future to argue for those other activities will be treated as a change of circs. rather than a correction. Claimants understandably won’t appeal as they have their 15 pts. but what MR is actually doing is making awards for the wrong reasons. So, we’re getting awards at a slightly earlier stage but we’re embedding poor and inaccurate decision making into the process.
FOI request released regarding decisions etc.
opinions?
Are there any stats anywhere on what percentage of decisions have been changed as a result of MR?
Benefits & Work has published some stats in its latest newsletter
http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/2790-dwp-overturns-more-than-half-of-its-own-decisions-under-new-mandatory-reconsideration-system?utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Benefits and Work&utm_content=A+17+June+newsletter+2014
seemingly taken from the Dark Matter report put on Rightsnet by Peter Turville here - http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/6471/P15/
The principal reason for the downturn in appeals is the cessation of reviews of peoples’ capability for work and the virtual absence of the predicted deluge of PIP appeals.
For there to be a deluge of appeals there would first have to be a (larger) deluge of actual decisions. I cant help but wonder if there is more to ATOS’ seeming inability to get through the backlog than we might first have thought
Some conspiracists may accept that 30-40% of unassessed ESA claimants on the assessment rate of ESA will not meet WCA criteria, and therefore should be on JSA instead.
Parking 700,000 people on ESA assessment rate is a rather nice way for the coalition to say “Less JSA claimants = more jobs, so our economy is booming”
I, of course, would never dream of thinking of such conspiracies!
[quote author=“Billy Durrant” date=“1403174823Benefits & Work has published some stats in its latest newsletter
http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/2790-dwp-overturns-more-than-half-of-its-own-decisions-under-new-mandatory-reconsideration-system?utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Benefits and Work&utm_content=A+17+June+newsletter+2014
seemingly taken from the Dark Matter report put on Rightsnet by Peter Turville here - http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/6471/P15/
However in his article Robert Martin does not say where the figures he quotes came from (presumably the DWP) given that Penning advised the Work & Pensions Ctte a few days ago that he could not disclose figures yet on MR’s even to a parliamentary ctte!