UC turned down, appeal questions

Hello again,
Had a phone call with the work coach yesterday. As suggested, it may be possible to find something I can do and not get sanctioned as this rolls on, though I felt uncomfortable with a lot of the rhetoric of the meeting (I really am not fit for work and the assumption was, apparently, that I would welcome all this: any talk of things I can't do was seen as 'negativity' and. 'putting up barriers'. I know this is their job but...y'know).

The thing that was floated was the idea of me doing online courses at an hr a day for a week. Though I didn't think to ask about it at the time (she wasn't prepared for a change in my claim and I have another, apparently more substantial, call in two weeks), I have questions about these courses that I thought someone might be able to answer, otherwise I'll just be worrying about them until then.

I doubt anyone will know the substance of the course I'll be put on, but, when they say an hr a day, is that likely to be something that I could split that up and do it in two bits, or would I have to work for an hour straight? Are they the kind of things that I'd have to do at a specific time, or could I fit it around my illness? I couldn't do an hr in one period every day and, in truth, I struggle to work on anything for a full hr on my better days, but I could easily enough split it up and do the work across the day I would think.

The other thing was: what is the format of these WRA courses? Are they text based (which would be easier for me) or is it like a TV programme or something? I'm sorry if these questions seem dumb or irrelevant, but I have no frame of reference here, my cognitive function is poor and these things might be the difference between me finding this easy enough or struggling badly.

Something else that I wanted to ask about is that, looking at some guidelines for appeals from a ME support group, they said that I should request the assessors report now and go through it, noting any discrepancies between that and my form, to send as evidence with the Mandatory Reconsideration. But when I looked at the benefits and work guidance, it seemed to indicate that it wasn't worth doing that unless it came to tribunal. Anyway, I've asked for the report now, but two weeks had already passed before I did that. Does anyone know how long it's likely to take for it to turn up? And if time is getting short before the MR has to be in, is it really worth sending my thoughts on about the report as extra evidence after I submit the MR form, or should I just leave it be? My benefits advisor didn't recommend anything other than getting a new letter from my GP, but I'm curious what you think here. Thanks for yr time.

GB

Thanks for your help.
"The assessors report is called a UC 85, when you ask for a copy you are usually told you should receive a copy within 10 working days, some members have informed us that they have received the report within a few days of the phone call."
We called up on Wednesday and were told to request it thru the UC journal (it was also said in the UC journal that I should make requests there for anything, rather than call, when they turned me down). I've had no acknowledgement of my request tho: does anyone know if that's standard or is it possible they're ignoring me?

Hi,
Report is still not here and I want to send my form no later than the weekend, so I guess that any extra evidence will have to wait for now. Going to leave another message on the UC account if it doesn't come tomorrow. When I left the first one, I picked "service issues" as my subject as none of the headers seemed to fit the topic. Is this likely to have been a problem? Is there a better one I might use next time? Thanks for yr time
gb

Hello again,
Finally had my request for the report acknowledged after a week, but it won't be here til Monday at the earliest. As that will leave me next to no time to lodge the MR afterwards (should it turn up), we've sent what we have off today with the form. However, UC now insist that everything goes to a Freepost address, which means that, according to the Post Office, it can't be sent by recorded/special delivery: it has to go second class. So, I have questions:
1. Is the "one month" I have to lodge the MR a full calendar month, in this case 31 days? The my letter is dated October 19, so in that case I have til next Friday. Were it 28 days, it should still get there but things would be a bit tighter.

2. How are you notified that they've received yr MR? In the past, we'd sent things recorded and so we knew when they'd arrived and had proof. They've obviously put a stop to this (one can't help but think that this makes it much easier for things to go awry, either accidentally or not so much), but does it come up on the journal or something?

3. Is it worth me phoning up and lodging the MR over the phone? Everything I've seen says that you should do it thru the post to make sure it gets done, but given that this now feels less secure than it did, is it worth a belt and braces approach?

Thanks for yr time
gb