Support Group

Hi, I was migrated from Incapacity support to ESA, I was recently declined by ATOS regarding moving to the support group from ESAC, I therefore appealed and was told that the DM would not change the decision. I therefore appealed and waited 7 months for my appeal. I requested various documents (as given in your guidelines) from DWP, which they supplied ,finally. Seven months later, before my appeal had gone through, I got a letter stating that they had looked at the decision again and have awarded me ESA support group from my initial assessment. Should they now also send the new assessment results, i.e. giving me the reasons of the change from ESAC to ESA Support Group. I sent the letter from your template with my original request. The DWP said that there was no need to request this quoting Data Protection etc as all documents are sent as a matter of course. But, as of this moment, I have not received any further documents. I got what I was going to appeal, but would like to know why they changed their decision as I had a number of conditions and not sure what mae them change their minds.

George wrote: Hi, I was migrated from Incapacity support to ESA, I was recently declined by ATOS regarding moving to the support group from ESAC, I therefore appealed and was told that the DM would not change the decision. I therefore appealed and waited 7 months for my appeal. I requested various documents (as given in your guidelines) from DWP, which they supplied ,finally. Seven months later, before my appeal had gone through, I got a letter stating that they had looked at the decision again and have awarded me ESA support group from my initial assessment. Should they now also send the new assessment results, i.e. giving me the reasons of the change from ESAC to ESA Support Group. I sent the letter from your template with my original request. The DWP said that there was no need to request this quoting Data Protection etc as all documents are sent as a matter of course. But, as of this moment, I have not received any further documents. I got what I was going to appeal, but would like to know why they changed their decision as I had a number of conditions and not sure what mae them change their minds.

Great news G !!!

I gather that you mean that you were awarded WRAG originally, and would be entitled to CB ESA.

It seems that the DWP are saying that you would have received all relevant documentation in the form of an "Evidence Pack" (bundle), if the case had been sent forward to The Appeals Tribunal Service.

It would seem that this has not been the case as you have received two reconsiderations of your WRAG award, the second one being successful.

You can request any documentation that was used in changing the decision at reconsideration.

There should be an LT54, and there may be an : ESA72 Form

See : ESA Forms

&

ESA medical – what forms to ask for?

Requesting the above, could be done by issuing a SAR, if you are having problems obtaining documents, see : www.dwp.gov.uk/privacy-policy/data-protection/

Congratulations once more, on being placed into The SG.

bro58

Do the DWP often do this. after you have gone to appeal?

My wife has gone to appeal and we have presented additional medical evidence with the appeal, which we do not have ready when we originally sent in the standard appeal form, which they used to reassess my wife, but still would not alter the original decision.

My question is why would they change the decision in this case for example and would they have access to the information sent to the appeal tribunal. Should we send that information to the DWP to avoid having to go to the tribunal, as the evidence we have presented in the submission to the tribunal is very strong and the DWP had no medical evidence to refute it, just a view from a nurse that my wife could self propel a wheelchair.

boo wrote: Do the DWP often do this. after you have gone to appeal?

My wife has gone to appeal and we have presented additional medical evidence with the appeal, which we do not have ready when we originally sent in the standard appeal form, which they used to reassess my wife, but still would not alter the original decision.

My question is why would they change the decision in this case for example and would they have access to the information sent to the appeal tribunal. Should we send that information to the DWP to avoid having to go to the tribunal, as the evidence we have presented in the submission to the tribunal is very strong and the DWP had no medical evidence to refute it, just a view from a nurse that my wife could self propel a wheelchair.

Hi b,

When an appeal is submitted to The DWP, any fresh evidence that the claimant may have should be forwarded to the DWP ASAP.

This would enable the reviewing DM to take any fresh evidence into account.

As you may know, an automatic reconsideration takes place by a different more senior DM to the one that made the original adverse decision when an appeal is submitted.

It is possible, to have an adverse decision changed in one's favour at the reconsideration stage, without having to submit any fresh evidence. It may simply be that the reviewing DM applies the ESA Regulations correctly, whereas the original DM didn't.

I can't really make any valid comment as to why the OP was successful.

If you have any evidence that the DWP DM has not had access to, I would advise that you copy them in on it.

bro58