Claimants being telephoned on decision being made

hi -

hearing that DWP are now telephoning people when PIP decision made to explain the basis of the decision .... and that they are going to monitor the effect on mandatory reconsideration numbers

question i suppose of whether the purpose behind this is to seek to convince people of the legitimacy of the decision and to dissuade them from entering the appeals process?

anyone coming across this yet?

cheers - shawn

Most of my clients are still awaiting assessment let alone a decision….of those that have had decisions none of them have had a phone call….yet.

Nick here did a PIP training course yesterday and no-one on the course had seen a decision yet either.

No phone calls here yet either. Decisions trickling through rather than flowing though we have just had our first PIP appeal (successful).

The meagre number of decisions I have seen have all been written ones. So far!

I hope we aren’t about to move to the situation with ESA decisions, where a phonecall is being used as an excuse to avoid sending a written decision, to attempt to dissuade challenges and justify the decision, to tell clients they have no option other than to claim JSA and to avoid explaining appeal rights etc.

Yes we are seeing clients getting these calls and actually some decisions have the calls recorded within the paperwork of the decision letter

Also as a rep I have been getting calls to negotiate the awards ( I suspect that they are clearing the backlog locally)

We have had a handful of clients who have received calls (none made to us) at initial decision and MR stages.

Can’t comment on the content of the calls or whether they made a difference to the decision.

There must be a concern that these will be like ESA ‘decision assurance’ calls where the DM will do anything but advise the client of their right to challenge the decision.

Has anyone yet requested DWP provide a copy of a recording or a transcript of such a call in a PIP or ESA case?

We were sucessful at our first PIP tribunal a few weeks ago (a presenting officer attended)but DWP have suspended the award and requested a statement of reasons for the decision. Will this become the norm?

Oh dear- that doesn’t sound good…

There was a PO at our one too. The client has already expressed concern that the DWP will request the SOR and I had told her not to worry unduly about it as it hardly ever happens, but in view of your experience I may have to retract that advice.

We also had a PO at my first PIP appeal several weeks ago.  She told me that they were under orders to attend the first several hundred.  She thought it was a local thing.  Obviously not.

We have had a couple of PIP appeals, one made it to a hearing where we had a PO. We have been told that a PO will be at the first 500 hearings. To be honest the PO in our case was very helpful.
The hearing lasted 2 hours 20 mins. At a meeting with TTS recently we have been told to expect only 2 PIP hearings per session and a possible move to only 1 given the length of time the hearings are taking.
Some of our clients have had a call from the DM explaining how sound the decision is and have been put off appealing until speaking to us.
We need to keep raising awareness of appeal rights and encourage clients as much as possible.

Slightly off topic, on reading through this post again I was reminded of a passage in an old HB decision (CH/1085/02), quoted below.  It’s typical of the ‘our decisions are correct’ type of thinking.

“6 The next “note” is on 26 July that:
“Amazingly [the claimant] has written a letter asking for a revision, he has however failed to provide any further information on which to base revision. Dave is looking at letter.”
I repeat that word for word from document 4A. That kind of prejudicial comment when someone exercises a right to ask for a revision or an appeal is entirely inappropriate. Exercising appeal rights is not “amazing”. It is exactly that - exercising rights”.

The appeal was allowed by the way.

A colleague of mine has had two clients notified by text!!!!

Another only discovered she had been successful on discovering £3000.00 had been mysteriously been paid into her bank.

Just had a PIP refusal today dated 28/7 (claim made 11/10/13). It says on the bottom of the letter:

“I’ll try to contact you on or after 4th August to discuss the decision. I’ll explain the decision to you and why I’ve come to it. If I’ve been unable to contact you by 11 August 2014 and you want to discuss the decision or arrange a different date, please contact us.

If you think that the decision is wrong, please tell us why and we’ll look at it again, including any extra information you give us. We may be able to change the decision, if we can’t we’ll tell you why.”

I thought that they were supposed to contact the claimant prior to the decision (if it was a negative decision/reduced award) to explain why the CM was minded to make this decision and give the opportunity for extra info that may change the decision. Seems that this has been shifted off to the MR period instead, hence further delays. Sigh.

Other than that, no phone calls.

We have been told that if appeals are won the POs will be asking for full written decisions on every case so they can see and share tribunal thinking etc.  This will be on all cases, not just those they think that there is an error of law.  So after waiting months for a decision, months for a hearing they will have to wait again pending full decisions being issued to the DWP and them deciding when to release payments.

One of my clients got the PIP written decision, rang up to ask for recon and was told that she couldn’t ask for a recon until she had had the phone call explaining the decision.

In my experience they do seem to be contacting most people after the decision has been issued to ‘explain’ it.

Jane

P.E.T.E - 04 August 2014 09:39 AM

We have been told that if appeals are won the POs will be asking for full written decisions on every case so they can see and share tribunal thinking etc.  This will be on all cases, not just those they think that there is an error of law.  So after waiting months for a decision, months for a hearing they will have to wait again pending full decisions being issued to the DWP and them deciding when to release payments.

Oh hell….I do hope this doesn’t prove to be the case….it’ll delay things by months…

I can’t see the FTT judges being too chuffed though it might explain why my client’s hearing was so long and involved (much more so than we expected it to be based on the standard of the supporting evidence and the information already provided by the client).