ESA: Backdating payment following tribunal success

Having recently been awarded ESA by a tribunal, I have received a confusing letter from DWP regarding backdating.

It states a date which is NOT the date of the original decision refusing benefit. Rather it is the date of the reconsideration, which was 7 weeks later (and upheld the original decision).

This doesn't seem right to me. Can someone please clarify? Thanks.

(PS: In case it's relevant, I have stayed on 'assessment' rate throughout the process.)

the only experience I ever had with tribunals was for DLA many years ago when I failed initially as I was rather green in these matters.I won the award at tribunal and they fax acrfoss to the DWP who usually accept the decision and payments are back dated to when the original failed claim was made. It's either a wrongly generated letter or somebody has got it horribly wrong at the DWP. You are entitled to what the tribunal awarded from the orginal date as far as I can see

Thanks, Gordon and Micksville. I'll get onto them. *sigh*

By the way, since posting I've realised that the original decision fell one week after the 13-week assessment period ended. I can't work out from the guide whether the award should actually be backdated that extra week, i.e. so that I'm paid the full WRAG rate from the start of week 14.

I phoned DWP, and it turns out my claim had to be 'rebuilt' (looks like it was accidentally closed on the day of the reconsideration, so they then re-opened it as a new claim).

So the back-pay is coming in two lumps (from Week14 to reconsideration, and from reconsideration to present). Only the first bit hasn't reached me yet!

So let the record show that the DWP actually got it right – well, sort of…

Once again, thanks for your help. It made it easier to phone them up knowing I was on firm ground.