News

27 August 2009

Decision Makers Exchanges from April to June 2009 are now available in the members’ area.

One of the issues covered in each of these editions is the number of DLA decisions which contain errors or are based on insufficient evidence.  For each of the three months this is running at a rate of around one in every ten decisions.  And that’s just the ones that the DWP think they got wrong, let alone all the ones that are successfully appealed by claimants.  Details of the types of errors are given in each edition of the bulletin.

Decision makers are also warned against potentially compromising claimant’s human rights by swiftly changing a tribunal’s decision by means of superseding on the grounds of ignorance or mistake, rather than appealing to the upper tribunal.

In addition, decision makers are told that there are still too many cases in which a supplementary submission has not been made to the tribunal after additional evidence has been provided which was not available at the time of the original DWP submission.

Senior DWP staff are also looking for cases to take to the upper tribunal in relation to:

help to perform domestic tasks has been accepted as attention;

serious deterioration in health brought about by extensive walking has been accepted to award higher rate mobility component;

lower rate mobility component is awarded for nothing more than reassurance and there is no mental disability that can be associated with fear and anxiety. DMG Volume 10 Chapter 61 para 61399 refers;

Crohn’s disease, customer is anxious about getting to the toilet etc. and higher rate mobility component has been awarded;

thinking/cognitive function where help has been accepted as reasonably required in circumstances where it seems entirely impractical for the claimed need for help to be met.

Copies of Decision Makers Exchange can be downloaded from the members area.