PIP Mandatory Reconsideration Result (update)

Hello,

I posted a topic about 2 months ago in query to my relative's PIP MR submission. We used the offered information in conjunction with the B&W and DWP PIP guides to create a 6-page document which we felt provided a strong and accurate account of the claimant's limitations with direct relation to certain tasks and descriptors. This information was sent as part of a formal MR request and was confirmed as received by the DWP about 6 weeks ago.

This morning we made our weekly call to the PIP office for a progress check. To our surprise the lady at the PIP office said that a decision letter had been issued this morning and all she could divulge was that the decision remains unchanged (no award for either component). While dwindling faith in the system prevented us from being too surprised at this unfortunate outcome, we had felt fairly confident that the Managing M&T and Face to Face Engagement tasks alone would warrant at least a Standard Daily Living award, as the claimant has major difficulties in these areas and we made great efforts to explain this in the submission (again using the B&W guides/PIP legislation for direction).

A further disappointment is that at no time did we receive a call from the decision maker - something the B&W PIP appeal guide mentions will happen in the case that the DM deems it unlikely that they will change the initial decision. This is something we had half expected and had created a 'reminder sheet' in preparation for, considering this an opportunity to 'put things straight' should the decision maker have any queries which might stand in the way of a positive decision. While we remain somewhat in the dark about the reasoning until the decision letter arrives (for what it's worth), we do feel that the lack of an award is most probably the result of some misunderstanding or misconstruction on the DM's part which may well have been rectified had the DM made phone contact before making the decision. Are these phonecalls standard procedure or something that the DWP can employ and disregard at its discretion? It does feel a bit unfair if the latter.

On a lesser note, shortly after receiving the initial decision in August we called the DWP to request the information used in the decision as per B&W guidance. The person we spoke to claimed to have registered this request on the system, but it is now around 2 months later and this potentially useful information has yet to be received. Would this be grounds for complaint?

Many thanks for your time and input,
Jon

Hello again,

The MR decision letter arrived Saturday morning. The decision maker's reasoning provided only a little more illumination on the lack of an award and followed the findings of the original decision maker in ways that often lead us to suspect that little consideration had been given to the wealth of new evidence. This has raised a few more questions for which we would very much appreciate your opinion.

For Managing Therapy -- a task for which we felt the claimant had a strong entitlement -- the claimant was awarded 0 points and given the reasoning: "You are not on prescribed medication and although you said you use Cognitive Behavioural Therapy I consider you can manage you health condition independently the majority of the time.” [sp].

Needless to say we disagree with the DM's conclusion, as it was thoroughly stated in the MR submission (no F2F was given) that the claimant requires approximately 8 hours per week of daily home-based therapy as prescribed by their GP. It was also stressed that the claimant must be supported in this therapy by a relative, as he is unable to maintain this therapy by himself without serious deterioration in his condition. (While this is only a rough summary, I feel it should indicate the claimant's probable entitlement to descriptor 3.e, "Needs supervision, prompting or assistance to be able to manage therapy that takes more than 7 but no more than 14 hours a week.”)

It is my understanding that this task relates primarily to the claimant's ability to effectively manage medication/therapy rather than covering their general ability to manage a health condition. As it has been stated that the claimant is unable to manage therapy needs without consistent daily support; the task appears to be exempt from the usual weekly percentage rules, and DWP guidance states “If a descriptor applies at any point during a 24 hour period, it is considered to apply for the entire day," we fail to see at which times the DM considers he is able to manage this task independently.

A further concern is that the letter has stated "You have told us you have no difficulties with [task]" in relation to several tasks where difficulty was expressly stated in the MR submission, though not on PIP2 document, suggesting these tasks were not taken into consideration.

All input is very much appreciated,
Jon

Thanks again, Gordon - your advice is invaluable. I have printed the appeal form and will be completing it with the claimant shortly.

Due to the claimant's social/mobility difficulties it may be necessary to opt for a paper appeal. In that case it would appear that success balances on the quality of the submission. A few quick questions on that:

I believe we will receive a copy of the DWP's submission bundle including their reasoning for the recent MR decision. If so, is it correct that on receiving this bundle we will have 28 days in which to send in a 'counter' submission? I ask this as I am unsure whether it is worth including a lengthy submission with the appeal form when it would seem more advantageous to do this after having considered the DWP's claim evidence. Is there any danger in doing this?

Regards,
Jon