APPEALING AGAINST A DWP DECISION
If anyone has been eagerly awaiting the next instalment of this blog [cue hollow laughter], I can only apologise and say that, since I haven’t yet been through the process myself, I have been researching the appeal process as thoroughly as I can. There is a wealth of information and assistance out there but quite a lot of it is VERY hard going – hence the length of time it has taken me to start writing this final part of my personal guide to surviving the ESA Claim process.
If you have been blessed with an ATOS Miracle, the first step in your appeal process should be to download the DWP’s own guide to appealing the decision, winningly entitled “If You Think Our Decision Is Wrong”. The most important thing about this leaflet is that it contains the application form you will need in order to launch your appeal. The advice contained is, obviously, generic and not as exhaustive as it could be, but the application form is the important thing.
You must launch your appeal within one month of the date on the letter
advising you of the DWP’s original decision!
Having downloaded your DWP leaflet and form, I cannot emphasise strongly enough that the best advice obtainable about completing this form and, indeed, the whole Appeal process, is available from Benefits and Work. This excellent service is NOT free of charge [its only drawback, in my humble opinion] but at a one-year subscription cost of less than £20.00 it is extremely reasonable and well worth any scrimping & scraping necessary to make accessing its invaluable content possible. [And for the cynics amongst you, No, I am not on a commission! I just happen to think that this is just about the best source of good advice available on the web at the present time.]
Assuming that you have paid your subscription and become a member of the site, you can download an excellent 35 page guide to the appeal process from the ‘Members Only – Resources’ page of the website. The guide is entitled Employment and Support Allowance Appeals and tells you step-by-step, in clear and concise language, how to set about your appeal and maximise your chances of a favourable outcome.
There are many things you can do to improve your chances of a successful appeal, no matter WHAT the ATOS ‘Healthcare professionals’ have written about you or how many points you ‘scored’ on their little tick-boxes! Here are a few examples, borrowed from the free access area of Benefits and Work : -
- Ask for an oral hearing – paper hearings have a VERY low success rate.
- Make sure you are aware of all the deadlines and DON’T miss any!
- Look at the point scoring descriptors in your test (using the Employment and Support Allowance – Limited Capability For Work test score sheet) and see if there are any points you can ask the tribunal that you didn’t realise might apply to you when you completed your original questionnaire.
- Look at the safety-net ‘exceptional circumstances’ regulations (Welfare Rights Bulletin No.204) and decide whether either of them apply to you. Incidentally the most important of these exceptional circumstances states that claimants should be placed in the support group if “there would be a substantial risk to the mental or physical health of any person if (s)he were found not to have limited capability for work’’.
- Submit both medical and non-medical evidence
- If possible, go to watch a hearing before attending your own so that you will know exactly what to expect.
- Be aware of the importance of issues like how you travel to the appeal hearing and the clothes you wear (see earlier instalments of this blog).
Not having been through the Appeal process yet, there is little more I can add to this ‘Survival Guide’, other than to link below the websites I have found most useful and to strongly recommend that you visit them as early in your ESA process as possible. I will update these pages as and when I progress through ‘the system’ myself. So good luck to everyone out there who is going through this particular form of torture and in the meantime, I shall move on to fresh fields and pastures new. Watch this space!
Web Pages You Should Visit:
ATOS causing fear and anxiety among vulnerable people [by “What Do They Know?”]
ESA Appeal Process Timescales [by “What Do they Know”]
UK Government Legislation – Employment & Support Allowance [Good Luck with this one!]
