DLA Award Received Yet Something Still Feels Wrong

Hi all

Re: DLA Award Received Yet Something Still Feels Wrong

I am the live-in Carer for my sister who has recently renewed her DLA for the third time and who has today received her award at the same rate as previous awards but for a much shorter period of time. Lower rate mobility and higher rate care. The previous awards were both for 5 years but this award is "...only for 2 years as your treatment may change how much help you need.”

This struck me as odd as the additional 41 pages of statements and medical evidence that accompanied the original 39 page DLA booklet gave nothing to suggest or indicate that her condition was likely to improve within this timeframe. There is nothing short-term or temporary about my sister’s mental and physical ill-health. Quite the reverse: over the years, there has (and continues to be) a gradual deterioration. Was it unrealistic of me to expect her award to be renewed for longer than 2 years given the previous awards? Should I be suspicious that the decision was arrived at in just 3 weeks? Am I being ungrateful even?

I cannot help but feel that this shortened renewed award is deliberately engineered so that it expires just as PIPs is being rolled-out nationally. That she will not then be able to renew her DLA when this short award runs out and that she will have to apply for the new PIP instead? That PIP is designed to be a much harder benefit to qualify for, which will still be in its infancy and which may see a repeat of problems similar to those witnessed with the whole IB to ESA migration?

I have this morning written a letter to the DWP asking for a statement of reasons and a subject access request, to better understand how the DM decided upon the short timescale of the renewed award (my sister has not had a medical since her initial application nearly 10 years ago, before ATOS were around …presumably because at each subsequent renewal, there has been more than enough medical evidence submitted for the DM to reach a decision without one?). I am conscious however that should I appeal or request a revision against the duration of an otherwise correct award, this will not be without significant risk.

Does anyone know what the DWP criteria is which determines the length of an award? …or is it just an arbitrary timescale that a DM picks at random? I’m struggling to find any reference, acts, case law or commissioner rulings on this topic.

Any thoughts or opinions would be most welcome.