The story below is pretty extraordinary. It’s a classic example of the DWP’s extreme dysfunction and bureaucratic tangling. It also demonstrates how very few rights of appeal disabled people really have when they apply for benefits:

I’ve posted below a letter which was received last week by Sean (named changed), a man in his 50s who has an Asperger’s diagnosis and serious depression and anxiety. (I’ve been writing about Sean’s struggle to apply for Personal Independence Payment, the benefit that is meant to replace Disability Living Allowance).

About a month ago, Sean found out that his application for PIP had been turned down. Then, bizarrely, just a few days after he received that rejection letter, Sean got a letter from the DWP which said that his Mandatory Reconsideration of his PIP rejection decision had already been carried out and the decision to reject his PIP appeal upheld. Mandatory Reconsideration is the review that PIP applicants must ask for if they want to challenge a DWP decision about their PIP application. When people request a Mandatory Reconsideration, they can ask the DWP to review the reasons why they were turned down. The problem for Sean was that the DWP carried out a Mandatory Reconsideration of its decision to deny him PIP without telling or involving him. Sean didn’t request the Mandatory Reconsideration that the DWP did and he never had the chance to contribute to it. More than that – the letter Sean received about this random Mandatory Reconsideration showed that the DWP carried it out BEFORE it made a decision about Sean’s original PIP application. Sean didn’t request that Mandatory Reconsideration, because he didn’t even know his PIP application had been rejected when it was done. He was very upset about that, with good reason.

So – Sean wrote to the DWP to complain about this Mandatory Reconsideration going on without him. He asked the DWP to run his review again – and to this time give him a chance to contribute to it. He got this letter in return – a letter which says Sean’s Mandatory Reconsideration has already been done as far as the DWP is concerned and so that is the end of that:

The upshot is that Sean has been denied his right to tell the DWP why he believes he should get PIP. He also ended up with only two days to make an appeal against the PIP rejection to tribunal, because the DWP said he had to meet the appeal deadlines set out in the original random Mandatory Reconsideration letter.

It can be hard to keep up with all of this, you know. Kafkaesque really doesn’t begin to describe it. Makes you wonder how many sick or disabled people are denied benefits and their right to appeal if a decision goes against them. Let’s not forget either that Sean’s PIP application was turned down because he got extremely upset at his face-to-face assessment. His Asperger’s and anxiety mean that he finds coping with face-to-face assessments and meetings very difficult. No adjustments were made for that, though. The DWP’s decision to deny him PIP because of his Asperger’s and his struggle to cope in stressful situations such as benefit assessments with unsympathetic strangers was rotten in itself.

That situation is being followed up, believe me.

#RightsNotGames

Join Disabled People Against Cuts next week as they protest against cuts to disability rights and support. Details of events here.

I am confused. Any insight into the situation described in this post would be more than welcome:

Below, we have more evidence – as if we needed it – that the Personal Independence Payment application system is a complete bureaucratic shambles.

I’ve posted below a letter which was received last Friday by Sean (named changed), a man in his 50s who has an Asperger’s diagnosis and serious depression and anxiety. Sean applied for PIP earlier this year. He’s had a very difficult time of it. After an unpleasant face-to-face PIP assessment in April, his PIP application was turned down in July. I’ve been following Sean’s disastrous experience of the failed PIP application “system” for a while.

Now there comes a bizarre twist. Last week – just a week after Sean received his PIP rejection letter – Sean received a letter from the DWP which said that as a result of a request made by Sean, the DWP had reviewed its decision not to award Sean PIP (and found against him again). People who want to challenge a PIP decision must ask the DWP to go through a process of reviewing an original award decision before the PIP applicant can appeal that decision at a tribunal. This extra review step is called Mandatory Reconsideration. If people want this review, they can contact the DWP explaining why they think the original decision was wrong. I’m guessing the letter Sean received is a Mandatory Reconsideration decision letter (about a mandatory reconsideration he hadn’t requested yet), but am not sure. I get very confused about all of this myself. Feel free to share views on the letter.

The problem is that Sean never actually asked the DWP to carry out this review. He has yet to ask for a review of any kind (even though the letter says he asked for this one). He certainly didn’t ask the DWP to review a PIP decision that was made in May, as the letter says. That’s because in May, Sean still had no idea whether he’d been awarded PIP or not. He’d only just had his face-to-face assessment. The decision about his application had not been made. He only received a letter informing him of the outcome of his application towards the end of July. Still, he got this letter. It says the review of Sean’s PIP rejection is done and dusted, and that the answer to Sean’s request for PIP is still No:

You can imagine how Sean felt when this letter turned up. He’d only just found out that his application for PIP had been denied. Then he got this letter which made him think that the review step – his chance to explain in detail why he should be awarded PIP – had gone ahead without him. He was very upset when he rang me to talk about it last Friday. It’s no wonder that this process drives people to the brink. Continue reading →

This is a story about Capita’s abject failure to adjust its PIP assessment procedures for people who need adjustments.

Here’s a Personal Independence Payment decision letter received last week by Sean (named changed), a man in his 50s who has Asperger’s and severe depression and anxiety:

You’ll see the letter says that Sean – a long-term Disability Living Allowance recipient – has been denied PIP altogether. He has been denied PIP, because, the letter says, Sean “failed to comply at the assessment centre,” (Sean was assessed for PIP at a Capita assessment centre in earlier this year). That would appear to be that.

Except that it is not. I think this is a significant decision. It is significant because it suggests that Sean’s PIP assessors made no allowances or adjustments for Sean’s mental health and problems dealing with stress at his assessment. Sean says that he got angry and upset at his PIP assessment and that the assessor cut the meeting short, because Sean was clearly not able to cope. Now, Sean has been told that the official interpretation of this event is that he failed to comply at his PIP assessment. He won’t get PIP as a result.

This makes me wonder. It certainly makes me wonder how things pan out for other PIP applicants who have complex spectrum diagnoses and mental health conditions, and who exhibit so-called challenging behaviour in stressful situations such as PIP assessments. Is it One Strike And You’re Out for everybody? Does Capita actually have processes in place to make sure that people who clearly struggle with assessments have other assessment options? Sean says that the Capita assessor suggested a home assessment when his face-to-face meeting was ended – but the home assessment never happened. It turned out that Sean and his GP were responsible for organising a home meeting themselves. (I rang the DWP to try and get to the bottom of all of this and the officer I spoke to said that was how the “system” worked). Sean didn’t realise this. The upshot was that a home visit never took place. Continue reading →

This one goes out to our new work and pensions secretary Damian Green. What will he do about the destruction of disability support in jobcentres? Hope the answer isn’t Nothing, or Get Lost, Kate.

Throwing this out there as a conversation starter:

I post below a video extract from a meeting at northwest London jobcentre earlier this year.

In the video and the meeting, the jobcentre adviser freely conceded that services for benefit claimants with extra support needs had been wrecked by cuts. More than that: the adviser conceded to me and Linda*, a 51-year-old sick and disabled JSA claimant whose JSA claim had been closed and housing benefit suspended, that “the most vulnerable” claimants who “can’t cope with the complexity of the [benefits] system,” were at extra risk of sanctions, claim closures, housing benefit shutdowns and other bureaucratic screwups because the service had been wrecked by cuts. They were at extra risk because the DWP had radically reduced the number of specialist disability employment advisers in jobcentres. Disability employment advisers were jobcentre advisers who had the time and training to support sick or disabled benefit claimants. They weren’t all great, but some were better than nothing. On occasion, they acted as a buffer between disabled claimants and sanctions. Some would argue in defense of a sick or disabled claimant who missed a meeting, or they’d make sure not to sanction a claimant who couldn’t use a computer and meet online jobsearch requirements.

In various press statements over months, the DWP tried to tell me that DEAs had been replaced by work coaches who offered a tailored service. In reality, jobcentres advisers were telling me and sick or disabled claimants such as Linda that DEAs had been replaced with nothing:

(Video transcript at the end of this post)

You’ll understand why I’m very keen to hear about the sort of plans that our new secretary of state for work and pensions has to address this particular disaster area. I’m not keen on receiving more press releases, or empty statements from the DWP about so-called tailored support for sick or disabled people. I asked the DWP last week about the number of DEAs in jobcentres/how things were coming along, etc. They chucked me a link from an early-June Hansard debate in which already-forgotten DWP head and baton-dropper Stephen Crabb rattled on about plans to double the number of DEAs in jobcentres. If I am honest, this doubling didn’t seem a great result to me, given that the number of DEAs had been cut by more than half in the first place. God knows, too, if any action on the doubling front has or will actually be taken. It is my experience that commitments made by ministers and the DWP don’t always exactly match the reality of the everyday journey on the ground. Let’s add that to the list of issues to explore. I’m keen for Mr Green to open jobcentre doors at all times to journalists, claimant representatives and anybody else who wants to forensically examine the facts of the DWP’s support for sick or disabled benefit claimants.

Continue reading →

From Disabled People Against Cuts:

Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is the replacement for Disability Living Allowance (DLA).

While DLA worked to provide support for the extra costs of being disabled, and the system worked well, the whole PIP system is rotten to the core.

The whole purpose of making the change from DLA to PIP is to remove people’s entitlements to the vital support which DLA provided to help enable disabled people to live a life on more even terms with non disabled people.

With the PIP assessment regime now in place, thousands of people have already lost out and reports of the shoddy nature of the assessments are growing every week. While the success rate at tribunal is high, it is taking up to 6 months or longer for cases to be heard – leaving disabled people struggling.

Read more here and find out about tomorrow’s protest events and online action.

Here’s an example of the way the Disability Living Allowance to Personal Independence Payment system “works”:

Sean (name changed) is in his 50s. He has an Asperger’s diagnosis and serious depression and anxiety. He struggles to leave his house. He relies on his partner to do much of their shopping and to make many of the endless phone calls that people who must navigate the benefits “system” must make. His partner has a schizophrenia diagnosis.

Sean is in the support group for Employment and Support Allowance. I’ve attended two of his ESA work capability face-to-face assessments in the last few years. Sean and his partner pay the bedroom tax on their so-called “spare” room. They also pay council tax now, because their council tax benefit has been cut. The mail that pours into their letterbox from the DWP and the council is pretty much non-stop. Last year, Sean even received a letter from the DWP which asked him to consider attending so-called work-focused interviews at his local jobcentre. People in the ESA support group are supposed to be exempt from job-finding requirements and activities, but still Sean got that letter. “They are relentless,” he says most times we speak. Indeed.

Now he’s stuck in the shambles that is PIP. Earlier this year, Sean received a letter from the DWP which said that his Disability Living Allowance was about to end and that he should apply for the new Personal Independence Payment. This news and new pile of forms was upsetting enough in itself. Sean says the income that he received in DLA made up an important part of the money he relies on to survive. The thought of losing that money or even part of it was of great concern. He found the PIP application form daunting, but filled it in with the help of a local advice group. The form was submitted. Next, he waited to hear from Capita with a date and time for a PIP face-to-face assessment.

As far as Sean is concerned, this part of things has been dire. Sean says that early in April, right out of the blue, he got a call from someone at Capita who asked if he could attend a PIP face-to-face assessment the very next day. This was not a good approach to make to someone who has Asperger’s and depression, and who struggles with sudden change. Sean was certainly rocked by that call. He and his partner rang to tell me about it. A next-day appointment gave him no time to prepare. For the ESA assessments we’ve attended, Sean’s arranged in advance for his father-in-law to drive him to the assessment centre. He’s also made sure that someone could attend with him. Surely ringing a person with Sean’s health history and asking him to attend a feared assessment the very next morning was reckless. In the extreme.

Continue reading →