Going ahead with tribunal or waiting for new form?

grace wrote: Thanks, bro58. I'm too ill to phone myself and my friend who phoned a couple of times already is now too busy at work to phone.

Does anyone else have any recent experience of being paid backdated DLA? How long did it take? Is it standard to receive these forms (asking for bank details and hospital stays to be confirmed)...my 2 friends (above) never received them!?

Also, has anyone ever sought and succeeded in getting accrued interest on the backdated amount? With most other organisations we would insist on that but with this giant monster called the DWP I think most people are too afraid to confront them, or too ill to do so.

It usually 6-8 weeks following a Tribunal and 3-4 for a Decision made by the DWP.

The forms are standard for DLA.

You would need to show that there has been an unnecessary delay in processing your claim, even then I would expect you to struggle to get any interest paid as the expectation is that claimants should spend their benefit, I am not suggesting that this is what happens in the real world. A better tack to take would be to show what expenditures you have had while you did not have the payments and attempt to claim for this, so as an example; if you lost interest on your savings because you had to use them to replace the lost benefits.

Gordon

grace wrote: Thanks, Gordon. I didn't understand what you meant by your sentence about them expecting us to spend out benefit...? Another friend (who claims sickness benefit) who is shocked by how DLA have treated me suggested asking for this interest since my claim form as compensation for how I've had to survive being extremely ill without any money to pay for help/care.

Were you meaning I'd receive the money 3-4 WEEKS or 3-4 DAYS after a DWP reconsideration? In their (2nd) reconsideration/award letter (they went from no award to HRM and HRC!!!) they said it would take 3-4 working days.

I am afraid I meant weeks.

Gordon

Grace

I am afraid that we cannot give any definitive advice in regard to this situation.

Yesterday we learnt that there were more than 700,000 ESA assessments outstanding across the country, it is difficult to see how ATOS can catch up on this figure in any reasonable timescale, especially as they have been moving ESA assessors their PIP assessment business and losing many others due to the "pressures" of the job.

However, the three members who have been assessed in the last few months appear to have been done so under the normal re-assessment process, none of them had reported a Change of Circumstances and none of them were subject to any "investigation" by the DWP that would cause them to issue an ESA50, so we have to assume that the DWP selected them under their normal re-assessment process.

The difficulty is that this is an operational change by the DWP, they can change the details as and when they wish with no requirement for them to make those changes public.

Whilst the deferment is probably a great relief to many members who were expecting a review, I think our guidance has to be that they remain prepared for a re-assessment as normal and breath a sigh of relief if they do not receive an ESA50, although I would also recommend that they contact ATOS around their re-assessment date to confirm that an ESA50 has not been sent.

Gordon