IB to WRAG to Support Dm lack of care

As I have mentioned in the past with the help of B and W I was first migrated from IB to ESA Wrag contribution rate without a medical.
And on appealing was reconsidered before appeal into the support group.
I then sent a SAR to the DWP in regards to how I had been awarded support group and asked for LT54 The prognosis, and any other information including points awarded etc. and how they had come to their decision to award me support group. I asked for this info as It could be useful for the forthcoming PIP,
In the LT54 report the DM said he had looked at my further evidence IE my consultants letters. Which were sent in my original ESA50 claim, But these letters were not mentioned in the original decision, And I remarked on this when I appealed. I asked if the original DM had actually taken the consultants letters into account. And the DM had also omitted one of my main disability’s,
This to me seems at worst Maladministration as the DM did not bother to read all the evidence submitted and at least, the decision maker had not bothered to read all the evidence in front of him,
I am not happy with this as all it has caused is stress for 6 month, And I wondered can I make an official complaint in regards to the original decision, and how the decision maker has blatantly ignored evidence, I also asked for the prognosis in my SAR but this has not been sent to me.
The LT54 does not mention the length of the award.
Any help would be appreciated thank you.

fithgear wrote: As I have mentioned in the past with the help of B and W I was first migrated from IB to ESA Wrag contribution rate without a medical.
And on appealing was reconsidered before appeal into the support group.
I then sent a SAR to the DWP in regards to how I had been awarded support group and asked for LT54 The prognosis, and any other information including points awarded etc. and how they had come to their decision to award me support group. I asked for this info as It could be useful for the forthcoming PIP,
In the LT54 report the DM said he had looked at my further evidence IE my consultants letters. Which were sent in my original ESA50 claim, But these letters were not mentioned in the original decision, And I remarked on this when I appealed. I asked if the original DM had actually taken the consultants letters into account. And the DM had also omitted one of my main disability’s,
This to me seems at worst Maladministration as the DM did not bother to read all the evidence submitted and at least, the decision maker had not bothered to read all the evidence in front of him,
I am not happy with this as all it has caused is stress for 6 month, And I wondered can I make an official complaint in regards to the original decision, and how the decision maker has blatantly ignored evidence, I also asked for the prognosis in my SAR but this has not been sent to me.
The LT54 does not mention the length of the award.
Any help would be appreciated thank you.

Hi fg,

I am not sure that it would be classed as maladministration, however you could enter the DWP Complaints Process, and see where it takes you.

A DWP DM is supposed to make a decision taking into account all information that they have access too, and said decision and resulting award should be made "on the balance of probabilities" in other words "beyond reasonable doubt" is not applicable.

If you could show that there was a blatant disregard of evidence that was provided, you "may" have room to escalate your complaint.

You will probably be told something like, any decision is "subjective" with respect to how any DM interprets evidence, this terminology is often used when ATOS or The DWP attempt to defend an errant ESA85/85A Medical Report.

One would assume that any opinion/decision would be based on fact, and therefore be "objective".

Subjective versus Objective

I can't really predict what the outcome of any complaint may be. You could either issue another SAR requesting the prognosis, or raise this issue also in any complaint to The DWP.

Complaining to The DWP

bro58

Thanks for that Bro58
I was not happy when The second DM has more or less agreed that the consultants letters were not read on the first decision,I wonder how many Esa50 forms and evidence are just brushed over.
Maybe they should have a performance system were DM were pulled up if they had missed blatant factors in a claimants documents,Only for the claimant to get the award in his favour,Just by pointing out the DM mistakes the first time around,.I will raise another SAR Thanks again.Bro58

Hi fg,

What Gordon says is indeed correct, however it could be argued that there should be consistency in the DM process, otherwise we have a lottery.

Harrington recommended in his final review that DM's must start getting it "right first time".

A lot of these DM's in the IB to ESA Migration Teams have been bumped up from Admin Officers.

It is highly likely that the reviewing DM's are more senior and experienced.

bro58

Yeah point taken Gordon they would just fall back on this if even a sniff of a complaint was made against them.
Claimants cannot win we just have to jump through all there hoops and hope the landing is smooth.