Statement of Reasons - Recorded Delivery?

Bill

As your claim was refused you should have received an ESA65 in addition to the Decision Letter, this is the DM's Statement of Reasons, I would not expect you to receive anything else.

The first stage to challenging a Decision is for you to request a Mandatory Reconsideration, this needs to be done in writing to the DWP, within one month of the Decision, to the office that dealt with your claim, have a look at our ESA MR & Appeal guide for details of the process, the ESA area also has template letters that you can use to make the request with.

www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/help-for-claimants/esa1

You should contact the DWP for a copy of the assessment report (ESA85), if you have not already done so, I would phone them but again follow up the request in writing. Once you have the assessment report you will have a better understanding of how the DWP Decision Maker has come to their conclusions and will then be able to argue against them.

Your primary task is to show that you meet the criteria, there are many reasons you may have failed, you need to address each of these but don't get bogged down in criticising the assessment report unless you can clearly show that it is incorrect, it is a lot easier to argue the facts of the situation;

"the assessor recorded that I walked 50m, I did but they have failed to document that I had to stop every 10m for a rest due to breathlessness"

than their opinions

"based on my observations of the claimant walking I believe that they can reliably walk more than 200m.

When you have a better idea of the issues with your claim, come back to the forum and we will do our best to help.

Gordon

Bill wrote: Hello Gordon

It was zero points at the tribunal, I wasn't sure if I should send another letter but recorded delivery this time or could I just ring them up to ask if they had received my original request?

Regards, Bill.

Sorry I missed the reference to the Tribunal.

You sent your request to the Tribunal Service?

You can ring them and confirm that they have received it. A SoR can easily take 5-6 weeks to be produced.

Gordon