Anyone Complained Re Capita Assessment

I'm only a few days in to our complaint re the Assessment (Review)

Zero Scores across the board - Justified as Daughter working - (Note: was working same job at last assessment)
Assessor ignoring all evidence - medical/work/professionals/Review Form
Assessor ignoring last Assessors PA4 (enhanced/enhanced)

I'm just wondering what comes of this complaint? Has anybody had a successful outcome after raising a complaint re: PA4

Any experience or knowledge would be most welcome.

Daughters paperwork allocated to Caseworker but is still in their queue, copies of the complaint to Capita are recorded as received on Daughters DWP file - not sure that the Case worker would look at this alongside the PA4?

Many thanks for any advice anybody can give.

Hi Sheila,

Me again

I did complain about my Capita assessment, however I was starting from scratch and didn't have any PIP award, so in a different boat to you.

I was told to complain to Capita as the DWP didn't care, so I complained to Capita. The assessor didn't listen to me, constantly cut me off so I was not allowed to explain my condition, and I mean constantly, and also ignored what I told her re my medication and mental health therapy. The result was I received zero initially.

I had to do Mandatory Reconsideration via the DWP but because of my complaint, Capita had already 'revised' their assessment and re-sent it to the DWP, however they only revised 3 elements on the PA4, and ignored the rest. This was enough to get me a basic award for both elements.

So, I think perhaps my complaint made Capita look at my assessment, and they did agree on one part of my complaint, which is that the assessor didn't allow me any time to compose myself after breaking down several times. They didn't agree with the rest, however I also didn't have a copy of the PA4 at that stage so I didn't know which bright spark wrongly concluded I didn't take any medication for my endo, turns out it was the Capita assessor.

Capita also offered me £150 as compensation, however I would much rather have just had an assessor who had listened to me in the first place.

So, perhaps it is worth complaining to them as there's a possibility they may revise the award. Can you also complain to DWP in your position, seeing as you already had an enhanced award? I sent the DWP copies of my complaint as well because I was furious, and they decided to keep these and send them as part of their Tribunal 'bundle', despite not responding to my complaint in any detail at all. So I think they were trying to paint me as a troublemaker or something, or letting the panel know I knew my onions so to speak.
For eg I threatened to go to my MP about this failure, and at the time my MP was the shadow minister for work and pensions. I didn't actually do that as I had no time, but after what happened at the Tribunal last week, it's something I may do in the future. I have read though that the shadow government aren't planning to make any improvements to the current system as they want to dissuade people from claiming support, so there seems little point.

Anyway, I hope this is of some help.

Have you actually requested a mandatory reconsideration and have you received a dwp decision makers decision yet?
Because what you need to do is not focus on a 'flawed assessment by Capita' but concentrate on where you think points should have been scored for each activity because that is what is needed if you apply for a MR or eventually proceed to a tribunal.

Sheila 966, there’s a section on this in the PIP guide version 59 July 2023. Page 126.

Hello Sheila,

I can't really help with this as it's IAS in our area so no experience of Capita, but the responses from MDBond and Den1mon reminded me of something I found very helpful when preparing my son's appeal and which I wish I'd known at the M/R stage.

Now, I sincerely hope you don't actually have to go that far (I don't think you've received the actual decision yet, have you?), but if you search on the forum for posts from LL26 re supersession awards I think you might find some interesting information. This, as I understand it, is when the DWP changes your award to a lower one without the necessary evidence (and I'm not sure that just a new assessment report is sufficient evidence), but LL26 will explain it much better than I can. This is, I believe, what happened in my son's case and what may happen to your daughter, too. The posts from LL26 were what gave me the confidence - such as it was! - to go on to appeal the first decision.

With regard to working, you may like to look at another post I submitted earlier on today quoting an interesting paragraph from the new decision letter.

Hope this helps - good luck.

Wendy