ESA appeal tribunal written submissions

chaff2 wrote:

Hi all
I was recently turned down for ESA having been on IB for many years. I then found B&W and decided to appeal. I sent in an extra 20 or so typewritten pages going into the grounds for my appeal along with the appeal form GL24 (using the info in the B&W guides). I've since received my 'bundle' and so I would also like to submit a rebuttal of all the misleading statements in my Atos assessment report (maybe another 5 pages). The B&W guides also mention submitting a 2-page summary of your case.

My question is - can I assume the appeal panel will actually read the whole bundle, especially the 20-30 pages I will have submitted in advance? I am extremely nervous about going to the hearing and feel it would help me to have put my case on paper first, and then just refer to it during the hearing.
Any help on this would be appreciated!

The Tribunal panel are required to review all of the evidence submitted by both the parties to the case, you and the DWP.

Whilst there is in principle no limit to the amount of evidence that a claimant can submit, as a general rule, the more that is submitted the less likely that the panel will be able to properly digest the content.

You can avoid this, to some extent by;

- organising your evidence, in to clearly recognisable blocks.
- ensure each page is clearly numbered, if you can as "page n of x"
- provide an index of the content
- put things that are more important to your case at the front of the pile (e.g. why you meet the ESA descriptors)
- Put a summary of your case (2 pages max) as the first document.
- If you intend to refer to content during the hearing, make sure it is easy to find, get someone else to check this, because what you think is easy, may not be for someone else.
- get all of your evidence in the Tribunal Service in plenty of time.

I hope this helps.

Gordon