I have been fighting the DWP for 9 years — Scope | Disability forum
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I have been fighting the DWP for 9 years

Jofowler20
Jofowler20 Community member Posts: 3 Listener
edited December 2018 in PIP, DLA, and AA
Hi all, I'm new to the forum. I've just been reading all your comments. It wouldn't surprise any of you if I told you I have been fighting the DWP for 9 years. I followed the complaints procedure through to the Independent Case Examiner. In August 2014 my complaints were upheld and I won a backdate for ESA, support group, from 20 October 2010. They'd had me in the work related activity group and I had been through the route of appeal and tribunal, but then because I had no right of reply after the tribunal and they gave me bad advise I managed to win of grounds of maladministration and official errors. Since the decision by ICE I had to write several more complaints to the DWP to recover the arrears, which they still haven't paid them all and I'm awaiting a further response to a 2nd investigation by ICE. 
I am 60 years old, I have a husband, until 2009 we'd both worked all our lives and then my husband had 2 heart attacks resulting in surgery and I've had brain surgery for a movement disorder. We both have other health problems. We were placed on contributions based ESA, when we should have been on income related ESA. I'd also received DLA since 2007 and my husband since 1997. However they had failed to pay my husband's DLA since 2004. We didn't realise until we applied for PIP for him, and then I was moved on to PIP and we all know what an ordeal that process is too. Anyway, I am in the process of requesting an investigation into my husbands historic DLA and in the process of waiting for an appeal date to the Upper Tribunal for my PIP. I believe we have both wrongly been paid C. ESA, instead of income related ESA and that we both weren't getting the correct rates of DLA/PIP. Had I have been placed in the support group from the start of my claim, and my husband in receipt of his DLA, it would have triggered us both to receive income related ESA with the severe disability element and we would have been entitled to the Support for Mortgage Interest Payments which in total we were denied for almost 8 years and without the help fromy daughter we would have lost our home. Thousands and thousands of ESA claimants have been wrongly assessed and been denied the mortgage support and had their homes repossessed.. The figures and the data is there. We know thousands have committed suicide. We know they try and put through emergency legislation to try and stop people. If someone has a mental health condition the DWP are supposed to send a particular form out and collect information, but of course they don't. I have read articles about the 70,000 ESA claimants and the 200,000 PIP claimants wrong ly assessed and paid.. But we haven't heard of anyone who has been paid any arrears or received any compensation! I would be really happy to collate a collective law suit?! I have tried to use social media to gather information to submit to some of the consultations they have had on the Welfare Act 2007 but I haven't been successful. Please anyone contact me to discuss their situation amd if I can help I will x thanks Joanne x

Comments

  • steve51
    steve51 Community member Posts: 7,153 Disability Gamechanger
    Hi @Jofowler20

    Good Evening & Welcome ??

    I am so sorry to hear about your battle with the “DWP” to date!!!!!

    We have got some “Benefit Advisors”
    here on our site.

    I will forward your post onto them for you if that would be helpful ??

    Hi @BenefitsTrainingCo

    Can you please help me with this post??????


    Yes we have got many many members in similar situations with regards to “Benefit’s” owed or unpaid.

    Please please let me know if I can point you in there direction????

  • Yadnad
    Yadnad Posts: 2,856 Disability Gamechanger
    Hi all, I'm new to the forum. I've just been reading all your comments. It wouldn't surprise any of you if I told you I have been fighting the DWP for 9 years. I followed the complaints procedure through to the Independent Case Examiner. In August 2014 my complaints were upheld and I won a backdate for ESA, support group, from 20 October 2010. They'd had me in the work related activity group and I had been through the route of appeal and tribunal, but then because I had no right of reply after the tribunal and they gave me bad advise I managed to win of grounds of maladministration and official errors. Since the decision by ICE I had to write several more complaints to the DWP to recover the arrears, which they still haven't paid them all and I'm awaiting a further response to a 2nd investigation by ICE. 
    I am 60 years old, I have a husband, until 2009 we'd both worked all our lives and then my husband had 2 heart attacks resulting in surgery and I've had brain surgery for a movement disorder. We both have other health problems. We were placed on contributions based ESA, when we should have been on income related ESA. I'd also received DLA since 2007 and my husband since 1997. However they had failed to pay my husband's DLA since 2004. We didn't realise until we applied for PIP for him, and then I was moved on to PIP and we all know what an ordeal that process is too. Anyway, I am in the process of requesting an investigation into my husbands historic DLA and in the process of waiting for an appeal date to the Upper Tribunal for my PIP. I believe we have both wrongly been paid C. ESA, instead of income related ESA and that we both weren't getting the correct rates of DLA/PIP. Had I have been placed in the support group from the start of my claim, and my husband in receipt of his DLA, it would have triggered us both to receive income related ESA with the severe disability element and we would have been entitled to the Support for Mortgage Interest Payments which in total we were denied for almost 8 years and without the help fromy daughter we would have lost our home. Thousands and thousands of ESA claimants have been wrongly assessed and been denied the mortgage support and had their homes repossessed.. The figures and the data is there. We know thousands have committed suicide. We know they try and put through emergency legislation to try and stop people. If someone has a mental health condition the DWP are supposed to send a particular form out and collect information, but of course they don't. I have read articles about the 70,000 ESA claimants and the 200,000 PIP claimants wrong ly assessed and paid.. But we haven't heard of anyone who has been paid any arrears or received any compensation! I would be really happy to collate a collective law suit?! I have tried to use social media to gather information to submit to some of the consultations they have had on the Welfare Act 2007 but I haven't been successful. Please anyone contact me to discuss their situation amd if I can help I will x thanks Joanne x

    I heard last week from a friend that his cousin (43) had committed suicide.
    Apparently he was in a mess with his mortgage and had been badly advised along the way, did not claim the means tested part of ESA for a long time and when he did he had to wait 9 months I think he said before he could get any financial help for the mortgage. With arrears of approx. £13,000 and with little income to pay it, and getting no financial help for the last 9 months from the DWP, bailiffs turned up in the morning to evict him. The sad bit about this is that whilst the bailiffs were downstairs waiting for him to pack some bits up he hung himself in the bedroom.
  • blue_zebra
    blue_zebra Community member Posts: 74 Connected
    Hi @jofowler20

    Welcome to our community, sadly I cannot help you with your current question but hopefully our advisors will soon be able to sign post you further. 

    You certainly aren't alone in this situation and I do hope you have a positive outcome. 

    @BenefitsTrainingCo
    can you please assist?

    kind regards


    ?  @blue_zebra ?
    Community Champion 

    &

    ♿️?? EDSWarrior ??♿️



  • justg72
    justg72 Community member Posts: 173 Pioneering
    Hi Jofowler20
    I think its about time that somebody is held responsible for all the grave errors the DWP, Atos and capita have made. Genuine ill and disabled people are been refused benefits they should be receiving. DWP say that the benefit system is working for the ill and disabled, if so why is there so many horror stories especially about people committing suicide. They leave people destitute with nothing and its not a quick fix because waiting times for a tribunal have increased and some are waiting for more than a year in some areas. Also I.C.E. have back logs due to the increase in complaints made and I was told in summer this year, that I was in for a long wait for mine to be dealt with as they were dealing with complaints from 2016/17. Theres so many errors that have been made with reviewing my PIP from start to finish and I am now waiting for I.C.E. to investigate. They have agreed that I have a case for maladministration and I am waiting like others who have raised complaints. I understand that sometimes errors are made, nobodies perfect including myself, however if I had made errors like they had not just one, but many I would had been sacked! I previously worked for the government in education I wouldn't had got away with it.  
  • clarkjohnson
    clarkjohnson Community member Posts: 210 Pioneering
    Hello there the truth is people who are ill are treated like criminals how can that be right people are taking their own lives for god sake 
  • Yadnad
    Yadnad Posts: 2,856 Disability Gamechanger
    Hello there the truth is people who are ill are treated like criminals how can that be right people are taking their own lives for god sake 
    I wouldn't go as far as that. It is more a case of the weak, sick, ill and disabled not being able to fight the might of the system. I once had the DWP tell me that my excuse for not filling out a form within the 30 days that they allowed was not acceptable.

    I was in hospital having spent many weeks in the high dependency unit with the rest of the time in a ward being fed intravenously through a central line in my neck from early Feb to late April. I was drugged up to the eyeballs and slept most of the time.

    Being in that situation was neither an acceptable excuse nor a reason for not complying with the DWP's demands. Hence my two disability benefit claims were shut down for non compliance.
  • clarkjohnson
    clarkjohnson Community member Posts: 210 Pioneering
    Well if you told that to any decent human being they would say that's totally unfair 
  • Yadnad
    Yadnad Posts: 2,856 Disability Gamechanger
    Well if you told that to any decent human being they would say that's totally unfair 
    Unfair? I was down right livid when I realised what they had done. It took 7 years (2004 - 2011) before I was both mentally and physically able to start both claims off from the beginning again. In those intervening 7 years I had to learn how to eat and walk again. In addition I was in and out of the secure psychiatric unit for months at a time and worst of all I was so drugged up 24/7 that I just couldn't figure out where I was living and with whom!

    Following the submission of both new claims I was re-awarded what I previously had, although, the intervening 7 years cost me in terms of lost benefit monies over £20,000 for which I haven't seen a penny of it.
  • clarkjohnson
    clarkjohnson Community member Posts: 210 Pioneering
    Sorry to hear that my friend you've been through a lot words fail me . Much love to you X 
  • clarkjohnson
    clarkjohnson Community member Posts: 210 Pioneering
    ? Albert Einstein all is forgiven ?
  • clarkjohnson
    clarkjohnson Community member Posts: 210 Pioneering
    Sometimes you gorra laugh or you'll cry I'm afraid 
  • Jofowler20
    Jofowler20 Community member Posts: 3 Listener
    To clarify... The calculations for the applicable amount, the Income related figures, were wrong, as they didn't include any disability premiums, then once any other income was deducted from the applicable income related amount, the amount on IR ESA fell below the entitlement to also C. ESA, and thus C. ESA was paid, this was also way before the change in legislation to max the c. Esa to 365 days. I was constantly told as I was on c. Esa and I was not entitled to claim any other means tested benefits, I. E support for mortgage interest payments. However, what should have happened, is that when the applicable income related amount was calculated it should have included housing costs, (which at one point is was not included in the  IR ESA but it was deducted from the C. ESA.), it should have also included the right disability premiums for my husband and myself. The total income related amount (applicable amount)( with the deduction of my husbands IB or later on his C. ESA), should have been substantially higher then the  C.ESA amount. This is what has recently been reported. I have read the reports on thousands being reassessed for PIP, or for claimants wrongly assessed when transitioning from IB to ESA, but it's only recently that it has been reported that thousands of claimants have been wrongly assessed for income related esa and only received the contributions esa, which in some circumstances the c. Esa can be more beneficial for some claimants, depending on their circumstances  but for a lot of claimants, when esa came in some were placed on c. Esa support group and were incorrectly assessed without disability premiums which denied them a top up of income related and thus denied access to other means tested benefits. With regards to the tribunal comment I made, because the tribunal could only deal with the issues at the time the appeal was made, and could not deal with issues that arise a few months after the claim date of the tribunal, and the tribunal was held almost 12 months from the date of claim, I could not raise any new issues, well I believe I didn't raise any new issues and that the issues were the same as when I filed for the tribunal, but the tribunal judge didn't, he felt that my health problems had only got worse a date after the period the tribunal hearing was to consider, and thus would not consider a seperate period. 
  • Jofowler20
    Jofowler20 Community member Posts: 3 Listener
    So I was told to reclaim. Which I knew was bad advice and I didn't, but I was in a difficult position and didn't know what to do. I was denied the support after mandatory reconsideration, appeal, tribunal, etc, then they say my health circumstances had changed so to re claim or go through the whole process or MR and appeal etc for the different period, which eventually I did, but it was the Independent Case Examiner who upheld my complaints and recommended that the DWP reconsider my claim from the point my health deteriorated.

  • Benistmonk
    Benistmonk Community member Posts: 343 Pioneering
     If someone has a mental health condition the DWP are supposed to send a particular form out and collect information, but of course they don't. 


    @Jofowler20 Well done for fighting for your rights and winning in the end. 

    What particular form are the DWP supposed to send people with Mental Health conditions?

  • wildlife
    wildlife Community member Posts: 1,293 Pioneering
    I've just had a complaint turned down by ICE apart from a £35 consolation payment for the length of time it took ATOS to investigate (or not) my complaint. Their report clearly stated they only deal with maladministration (system failure) and not anything to do with the assessment, the PA4, the benefit decision or indeed anything of a medical nature. However I read above that they do get involved with a benefit decision? Could this be because my complaint was only against ATOS and not the DWP?

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