Benefits Advice Please?

Cassie

Despite what you have read you should be able to make a claim for JSA (or UC depending on your area), immediately, I know of no restriction that prevents a claim within 4 weeks of an ESA payment, in fact ESA claimants who are found Fit for Work usually have an appointment at there local JC+ arranged for a couple of days later.

If you intend to challenge the Decision then once you have made a claim for JSA and it has been accepted then you can present a new Fit Note and be excused from any Job Search requirement for up to 13 weeks.

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

Cassie

Finding an advisor is very difficult is very difficult so I don't want B&W to get between you and them as ultimately they can provide you with more support than we can.

That said, it's your claim and only you profit or lose by what happens.

The first thing I would say is to discuss the issue with your advisor.

What are you aiming for, the WRAG or the Support Group?

If the former then you only need to score another three points, would you see your scoring this by increasing one of the 6 points you scored or by scoring on the Learning Tasks activity?

If you are hoping for the SG, then you are obviously well short of the requirement. All three of the activities 15 point Descriptors correspond to SG ones, but have very tight restrictions.

Gordon