ESA Sanctions..Failure to Attend Assessment

Could any of the mods give advice or suggestions on the following complicated problem. An attempt is being made to assist my nephew who has mental health problems and who failed to attend an ESA (transfer) medical assessment because of his condition, which is the reason for him being on benefits.

As a result of this in September he was sanctioned and his benefit payments were stopped. We appealed immediately as he had good cause and because we had prior asked for a short deferment of the assessment until his treatment was able to take effect. We also placed in a fresh claim for ESA.

An ESA50 was later filled in but there is no sign of a fresh assessment. Until such time my nephew will receive no payments and we appear to be at the mercy of ATOS to decide when this will be. As he lives alone and is getting into financial difficulties his mental health is deteriorating and his mother who is also on disability benefits has to provide food for him etc.

Out of desperation an urgent hardship payment was applied for about 3 weeks ago but no response has been received. When asked by telephone why this was so, they say it hasn't been looked at yet, and the original appeal has not yet been submitted to the tribunal as it has not yet been reviewed. To date this is two and a half months to review, it took 24 hours to sanction him.

We have applied to the Upper Tribunal for a Judicial Review to maintain payments until the matter is resolved and also applied to them to directly accept the appeal or to issue directions that the appeal be submitted immediately, as the delays caused by Jobcentre Plus are unreasonable, disproportionate and causing hardship and distress. Similarly a complaint has been made to Jobcentre Plus in an attempt to speed things up. Any other ideas, advice or suggestions would be very welcome.

adam-ant wrote:

Could any of the mods give advice or suggestions on the following complicated problem. An attempt is being made to assist my nephew who has mental health problems and who failed to attend an ESA (transfer) medical assessment because of his condition, which is the reason for him being on benefits.

As a result of this in September he was sanctioned and his benefit payments were stopped. We appealed immediately as he had good cause and because we had prior asked for a short deferment of the assessment until his treatment was able to take effect. We also placed in a fresh claim for ESA.

An ESA50 was later filled in but there is no sign of a fresh assessment. Until such time my nephew will receive no payments and we appear to be at the mercy of ATOS to decide when this will be. As he lives alone and is getting into financial difficulties his mental health is deteriorating and his mother who is also on disability benefits has to provide food for him etc.

Out of desperation an urgent hardship payment was applied for about 3 weeks ago but no response has been received. When asked by telephone why this was so, they say it hasn't been looked at yet, and the original appeal has not yet been submitted to the tribunal as it has not yet been reviewed. To date this is two and a half months to review, it took 24 hours to sanction him.

We have applied to the Upper Tribunal for a Judicial Review to maintain payments until the matter is resolved and also applied to them to directly accept the appeal or to issue directions that the appeal be submitted immediately, as the delays caused by Jobcentre Plus are unreasonable, disproportionate and causing hardship and distress. Similarly a complaint has been made to Jobcentre Plus in an attempt to speed things up. Any other ideas, advice or suggestions would be very welcome.

Hi,

We cannot give case specific individual advice, and particularly as you have a Judicial Review (JR) in progress, then it is difficult to add anything further over what you (and presumably a legal adviser/solicitor/CAB) have set in progress as one would not wish to act in a way that could affect the outcome of the JR (by such as using the media etc).

Other than perhaps getting his local constituency MP involved to try to speed things up, your/his legal adviser should know about the possibility of expediting an appeal tribunal on hardship grounds (however it does depend on how many others are in a similar financial situation how quickly that may occur).

Other than that in reality your query lies far beyond the remit of this forum.

Pete