Hi all,

So i reccently appealed against an ESA decision that found me fit for work.

The appeal lasted 15-ish mins with decision sent by post.

When tribunal letter arrived on last saturday (5/11/11) i thought it said id lost my appeal.

So monday 7/11/11 i joined JSA over phone and told them id been on ESA and about the Tribunal letter etc.

Today 12/11/11 i get a letter from DWP dated 10/11/11 saying:

"You made an appeal against Employment and Support Allowance decision issued to you on 17 March 2011.

We have looked again at the facts and evidence we used to make our decision.As a result we have changed the decision.

Your appeal will not be sent to the Appeals Service as the decsion has been changed in your favour.

We cannot pay you an allowance from 8 November 2011.This is becasue:

You have claimed another benfit like Income Support or Jobseekers Allowance"

:jaw:Did i mess up by moving to JSA? did i win my appeal? do i get backpayment from last WCA to 7/11/11 ?

Please help im confused as i thought Tribunal told me my appeal wasnt successfull,hmm,cant find damn Tribunal letter now

Who do i listen to? DWP or Tribunal Service?

Also if they changed their decision in my favour as they stated and i was allowed to claim ESA,can i ditch JSA and now dash back onto ESA quickly?

You've won your appeal! They reconsider before it goes to appeal. (appeal and tribunal are the same thing)

I think you did mess up by claiming JSA.

I would phone DWP and ask what happens now with this. Are you still too ill to work?

Its a little confusing though as i have allready been to an Tribunal and DWP speak of them changing their decision and not need to go to Tribunal....hmm.

Yes i still have issues that leave me with a limited capability,i had 2 accidents working for Tesco which resulted in them involving ooupational health who advised them to

finnish me on the grounds of bad health,which they did.

I have had an unsuccessful discectomy and am waiting to see the neurosurgeon again about hopefully having spinal fusion as the disc is now poping out of place and pressing on my nerves in legs,ouch.

Is it possible DWP made a mistake and what happens if they turn round on monday and say letter was sent by mistake....just some questions running through my mind now,do they now have to stick with what they say in letter etc?

Thankyou for answering my post

There is another tier that works out of the Tribunal Service offices now. They intercept cases that are waiting to go to the Tribunal and see if they can change the decision. This is what happened to you. The letter from the TS says that you have won your appeal without it being heard. It is very confusing, but the DWP are using TS headed paper.

What you have done is what many do. Go straight onto JSA believing that all is lost. I'm sorry but you have been niave and haven't played the game properly.

For those that fail, just reclaim ESA the next day so avoiding the JSA alternative.

In your case you have passed, but claimed JSA. What have you told Jobcentre of the sort of jobs you are looking for? If you are already down that road, you have confirmed that you are fit for work. and closed your ESA claim down.

I would get down to the Jobcentre and tell them that you have made a mistake, tell what happened and ask them that the JSA claim be closed and do a rapid reclaim for ESA.

There is another tier that works out of the Tribunal Service offices now. They intercept cases that are waiting to go to the Tribunal and see if they can change the decision. This is what happened to you. The letter from the TS says that you have won your appeal without it being heard. It is very confusing, but the DWP are using TS headed paper.

 

What you have done is what many do. Go straight onto JSA believing that all is lost. I'm sorry but you have been niave and haven't played the game properly.

For those that fail, just reclaim ESA the next day so avoiding the JSA alternative.

 

In your case you have passed, but claimed JSA. What have you told Jobcentre of the sort of jobs you are looking for? If you are already down that road, you have confirmed that you are fit for work. and closed your ESA claim down.

 

I would get down to the Jobcentre and tell them that you have made a mistake, tell what happened and ask them that the JSA claim be closed and do a rapid reclaim for ESA.

But the letter im talking about isnt from tribunal service,its from DWP themselves

I lost my Tribunal reply but im sure it said it was a failure,then i gets this DWP letter today that contains the content i posted in my first post,basically saying they changed their decision in my favour.

Think im gona speak to my CAB case worker again on monday,see what he makes of it all.

Im just worried they made a mistake and they will say this letter was sent by accident.

At the jobcenter i told them i dont know if i qualify to claim JSA,the guy interviewing me said he didnt have time to discuss the matter with me but he booked me in to see a disability benefits officer/person and told me to just sing up at the moment to keep my payments going.

I told him i cant just do any job and that im quite limited in waht i can do.

If they push me to try for jobs that involve lifting,bending,stretching,walking far...they can forget it as its gona cause me major pain.

I just tried to upload a scan of the letter but i have to have 10 posts and i only have 2

i.imgur.com/Hkchc.jpg

There is another tier that works out of the Tribunal Service offices now. They intercept cases that are waiting to go to the Tribunal and see if they can change the decision. This is what happened to you. The letter from the TS says that you have won your appeal without it being heard. It is very confusing, but the DWP are using TS headed paper.

Just to clarify, the DWP are not using paper headed with the TS logo.

The teams that review cases waiting to go to tribunal are not working out of the tribunal offices and are not part of any tier of the TS. It is DWP staff who are reviewing cases before they go to Tribunal and they send out letters on paper headed 'Jobcentreplus'.

Superj, the letter you have posted up is too small to read.

Could you tell me if you received another letter at an earlier date from DWP telling you that they had reconsidered their decision and it had not been successful and was being sent to the TS? This would have been before the DWP sent you a big bundle of paperwork that they used to come to their decision, and before you heard from the tribunal service (did you receive this big bundle of paperwork?)

Just to clarify, the DWP are not using paper headed with the TS logo.

 

The teams that review cases waiting to go to tribunal are not working out of the tribunal offices and are not part of any tier of the TS. It is DWP staff who are reviewing cases before they go to Tribunal and they send out letters on paper headed 'Jobcentreplus'.

 

Superj, the letter you have posted up is too small to read.

 

Could you tell me if you received another letter at an earlier date from DWP telling you that they had reconsidered their decision and it had not been successful and was being sent to the TS? This would have been before the DWP sent you a big bundle of paperwork that they used to come to their decision, and before you heard from the tribunal service (did you receive this big bundle of paperwork?)

Hi!

yes i have previously received a letter to say they had reconsidered but still not willing to change their minds.

At the time they sent this to me i had not even sent them any of my medical reports/evidence so i dont know what they where reconsidering?

Also yes i did get a bundle of "appeal" papers.

Why do you ask?

Erika,copy paste this into your browser and hit return:

i.imgur.com/Hkchc.jpg

its the letter up close.

Thanks. Sounds to me that one of two things have happened.

Either that they have received your additional papers and because of the new information, have reconsidered the decision, not realising that the tribunal has already been held (they can reconsider right up until tribunal if new information is received)

or

They have recieved the tribunal's decision and for one reason or another they disagree with it thus have reviewed it. They are not supposed to do that - if they disagree with the tribunal's decision, they are supposed to apply for permission to further appeal it.

The first explanation is the more likely of the two. It's a difficult area because a Tribunal's decision is supposed to be binding unless one of the parties has a further successful appeal to the upper tier. So although I can provide possible explanations for what has happened, I wouldn't like to say for certain that you would be due a backdate of ESA because the later decision of the DWP may not be able to be held as binding. The only suggestion I have for you is to get in touch with them, explain the different letters you have received and ask what has happened and what this now means for you.

Thanks. Sounds to me that one of two things have happened.

 

Either that they have received your additional papers and because of the new information, have reconsidered the decision, not realising that the tribunal has already been held (they can reconsider right up until tribunal if new information is received)

 

or

 

They have recieved the tribunal's decision and for one reason or another they disagree with it thus have reviewed it. They are not supposed to do that - if they disagree with the tribunal's decision, they are supposed to apply for permission to further appeal it.

 

The first explanation is the more likely of the two. It's a difficult area because a Tribunal's decision is supposed to be binding unless one of the parties has a further successful appeal to the upper tier. So although I can provide possible explanations for what has happened, I wouldn't like to say for certain that you would be due a backdate of ESA because the later decision of the DWP may not be able to be held as binding. The only suggestion I have for you is to get in touch with them, explain the different letters you have received and ask what has happened and what this now means for you.

Like you say,the only way to be sure will be to ring them myself tommorow and find out exactly how i stand.

So,this DWP letter i recevied on sat,also makes refrence to how they have changed their decision in my favour and with that in mind do i have a right to now reclaim ESA? should i ask to be put back on ESA and explain that i only signed on JSA as i thought id lost my ESA appeal?

I have doubts i will even stay on JSA either way as i have told them of my condition and how it has changed since i applied for ESA back in 2009,but they told me they dont have time to discuss this with me.

If they are willing to help me find a job within my capabilitys then im more than willing to work,if they try to push me into just any regular job and ones thats likely to cause further damage to my health and they wont accept i need some help....then im back on the the ESA roundabout

Again,thanks for your answers Erika ,they are the best i have had so far

Small update today as i have now spoke on the phone with DWP.

im angry,i phoned DWP about the letter i received that i quoted in my first post.

They first told me they know nothing about changing their decision so i read it out to them over the phone just to remind them

I was placed on hold and then after short wait ended up speaking to another lady who said she also could find no record of the letter i had in front of me and that my appeal was disalowed,despite the fact i am holding a letter from them dated 10th nov 2011 stating they changed their decision in my favour.

Maybe being kicked from ESA is in my favour then??

Anyway,i once again read out my letter and was again placed on hold for few minutes.

Soon the same lady comes back on phone and tells me that she has actually now found the letter they sent out to me in the post stating the decision has been changed in my favour,but she then tells me this letter must be a "rougue letter" sent by out by accident

Whats a rougue letter? is it one that just changes its mind half way through the post?

She told me theres nothing i can do and that the decision is final,the appeal is disallowed despite me holding a letter from them saying decision is changed in my favour.

Are they allowed to do this??

They do look at the decision before the claimant gets a letter stating the final decision. Very rarely is it different from what the tribunal agreed.

They do look at the decision before the claimant gets a letter stating the final decision. Very rarely is it different from what the tribunal agreed.

Thanks for your reply.

So do they have to keep to whats in this letter they have sent me or can they change their mind again? letter was dated 10th Nov 2011 so was on saturday,thats after the Tribunal.

I was worried this may be the case, as the decision of a tribunal as I said is binding, unless one of the parties successfully appeals against it.

The only further suggestion I have for you is to write a letter of complaint to the ESA office, sending them a copy of this letter (a copy, not the original), and see where it takes you.

I spoke with my CAB caseworker this afternoon and hes ringing them tommorow.

He seems to think they have made quite a bit of a mess of things.

I will update maybe tommorow with what he finds out over the phone,again thanks for the replys guys,i appreciate the advise/opinions.