Statement of reasons

Hi Mrs Hurtyback
I am not sure that what you have been told on the phone from someone at DWP can be correct.

When you sent in your subject Access Request, did you put Appeals on the envelope.

I have generally found DWP staff to be polite and helpful on the phone, but they do sometimes give out wrong information.
I would send them another SAR.
Mike

I,m really sorry Mrs Hurtyback, that you are having all these problems, it beggars belief, how this whole system works, as far as i know due to having a family member working for ATOS a DM is still involved, i hope you sort it out soon.

Chrissy V

Further to this, I posted what I had been told about no Decision Maker on another forum. Someone replied who purported to work for DWP and said that only 'refusals' are being dealt with by formal Decision Makers. Everything else is dealt with by less senior staff who are guided by the ESA85 alone. In these cases no SOR is produced.

Is this breaking any DWP guidelines?

There does seem to be some sort of crisis with these requests.

I wrote to Sutton requesting my statement for refusal on 28th October 2011 - to this ate I have still not received it. The tribunal judge was told to submit this to Sutton several and finally given a deadline of 11th Feb but nothing has been forthcoming. So Sutton contacted the Regional Judge and I was told to allow10 weeks for a response - and still nothing.

I contacted Sutton again last week an a very nice lady was appalled that nothing ha come through yet, and recommended that I call again this week - and if nothing has arrived there then to contact my MP. I asked her if she has seen anything like this before and she said it happens and more so recently, but she had one last week where the request was made to the tribunal judge last July (!) so I guess I am lucky to have only waited 6 months so far.

I did get the impression that the problem lies with the Tribunal service and not Sutton DWP - and of course if its happening to Sutton clients - I would hazard a guess that it is happening in other DWP offices too

This is what the 'DWP employee' said in response when someone else made the same point.

"Those that haven't scored 15 points are passed to Decision Makers because disallowing benefit has to be done by a Decision Maker (on any grounds, not just WCA) - they can, and do, award additional points if they feel it is appropriate, or they will confirm the Atos score if there is no additional evidence to change it. Those decisions will be accompanied with reasoning statements, whether that decision is to allow or disallow. Those that have scored 15 points will not be passed to a Decision Maker as no disallowance decision needs to be considered, as the basic condition is met. They will be considered for completeness by someone trained to do so, and the appropriate component (Support or WRA) will be applied and payments released."


"Those who deal with allowed decisions have delegated authority to award benefit but are not 'decision makers' by job role or grade and do not need to provide reasoning."

As I said, I think this might explain why so many people are having difficulty in getting hold of their SOR!