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DWP reviewing PIP award following successful tribunal
I’m wondering if the DWP are able to do what they are trying to do to my client.
Timeline is as follows. Client claims PIP June 2013. Seen by ATOS in October 2013. Decision in November 2013 that she has no entitlement to PIP. Client appeals and eventually attends tribunal in September 2014. One of the reasons that tribunal took so long was that her initial hearing was postponed and her full medical records requested - these were provided running up to June 2014. Clients appeal was successful and she has been awarded standard rate daily living and mobility up until June 2016. This decision has not been challenged and client received her backdated PIP. I would say that client’s case is marginal (although it certainly has enough merit to argue), and if I had been a DWP presenting officer at the hearing I would have recommended an appeal.
Client has now received another PIP2, with a cover letter telling her that if it is not returned her benefit could be stopped. I called DWP who advised me that this is a ‘planned intervention’ (as opposed to an ‘unplanned intervention’ which apparently is where a claimant contacts DWP and states their condition has changed). Reading between the lines it seems that they are looking at whether they can supersede the decision based on an improvement in client’s condition. Client’s condition has not improved, no further information was sent to DWP, and Tribunal had sight of all the medical records up till June 2014 when they made decision to award PIP up to 2016.
I am waiting for a call back to explain further why this intervention is being made. My feeling is that even if there is something in the medical records that they think suggests improvement, all of these records were considered by the Tribunal when they set the length of the award. If the DWP were unhappy with the Tribunal decision they should have requested a Statement of Reasons (and they should have sent a presenting officer as had directed been by the judge in the postponement decision). Unless they have new evidence that has not been considered by the Tribunal surely they cannot make a supersession, or mount a fishing expedition looking for further evidence? Once an award is made, can the DWP send out requests for medical evidence even if they have no prior evidence that things have changed?
It seems inevitable to me that I am going to be told that client must return her PIP2 or her claim will be stopped, in which case she would appeal on the basis that they had no evidence on which to start a review of the claim. If she wins that appeal she would get PIP until at least June 2016 (assuming that her condition does not significantly improve). If she does return the PIP2 and go to an assessment (maybe 20 weeks later) then it is not certain that it will be stopped but seems likely. I am not sure what date the supersession would take place from given that as far as I am aware the DWP have no further evidence that has not been considered by the tribunal. I was thinking of advising the client to return the PIP2 and at least receive her payments until she is reassessed but worry that this could leave her with an overpayment. If she is turned down and goes back to a tribunal it is 50/50 whether she will win again. So if people agree that she has a strong case to argue that the DWP have no grounds to supersede I would advise her to take the short term pain of having her PIP stopped temporarily in order to argue that the DWP cannot look at the claim again until 2016.
A third option could be to send back the PIP2 with a cover letter explicitly stating that nothing has changed since the last PIP2 was completed? If we did it this way can the DWP still seek further medical evidence?
Just to be clear, this is not a client attempting to cover up an improvement in her condition. We are trying to prevent the DWP from engineering a way of having a second bite of the cherry where a 50/50 tribunal went in her favour and they did not exercise their rights to challenge that decision in the proper manner.