That is soooo unfair it's not true! How is the ordinary person supposed to know all about this? Yes I would have ticked that box only because I cannot go out on my own but do go out when accompanied. One of my problems is not being able to concentrate due to the side effect of some of the drugs I take (Morphine & Sertraline in particular). I am guilty of just ticking the boxes both on the ESA50 and the DLA review from, I also told my wife the same thing when she completed the AA claim form. Obviously I had major problems with all three and still can't manage to get the AA award for my wife. There are no Welfare Rights people about. Well there is the CAB & DIAL both with a waiting list of many weeks.

Thank goodness then at least I have good reason to know that it wasn't me being ignorant. As I have said, it just never appeared to be one of those things that is taken into account either for ESA or DLA.

BNP member? What has that got to do with the matter in hand, namely a sanction for failing to comply with a clear directive?

Excellent! That should then take me to my 65th birthday when ESA will stop anyhow and the state pension will start.

That isn't true is it. The next ESA50 will be sent out according to the period decided when the face to face assessment was carried out. You could well receive another ESA50 before you are paid the arrears from the previous award!!

Am I right in thinking that if an ESA award comes to an end (by virtue of a date given when the award was made) and that a face to face assessment has not been carried out due to my insistance that it be recorded, the old ESA award (Support Group) would continue in payment until the the decision is made after the face to face assessment has been carried out. If so, is this not a way of prolonging the award period and putting off the evil day of losing ESA altogether with the 0 points result?

How do you come to that conclusion? The system is certainly not punitive. It is only punitive when someone disregards a direction or fails to comply with what is required of them. Are you suggesting that the JC deal with this as 'just one of those things - never mind, just don't do it again'? If you break a rule then there are consequences. As for saying that the 'depression' is the root cause of why claimants do not comply with directions, you are clearly not understanding the position. Why should the claimant get her MP involved? She has already stated "Apparently, in the many bits of paperwork I was given there was a specific order to send my CV in by a particular date but I didn't do this". The only reason that the claimant finds herself in this situation is that she just didn't bother to send in her CV as requested. Presumably you think that the MP should overide the JC's decision.

If that is the case, shouldn't the reverse apply as well? I already receive HRM as well as MRC but my ESA assessment said that as I was able to walk unaided the 15 metres to the assessment room it was proclaimed that 200 metres would not be impossible. I argued that this was at odds to the DLA assessment (which was backed up with evidence at the time). They refused to budge and said that in their opinion their assessment of my mobility was correct! It does seem a bit strange that the DLA award was reviewed in the December, yet the ESA assessment which took plave 5 weeks later gave a completely different answer. I personally wouldn't rely on one benefit helping you win a different one. PS I never did get them to change their minds, I had to rely on the mental health scenario to get me into the Support Group.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/taxcredits/keep-up-to-date/changes-affect/work-changes/no-work-illness.htm There is a 28 week period of illness when TC's will continue to be in payment. If you go over 28 weeks TC's stop. However, if before that 28 week dead line, you go back to work and then go off sick again the 28 week period starts again. It is quite common to do this - some after 27 weeks register as self employed, work 30 hours say for a week or two than go back on the sick. Some go back to their normal job for a week or two 'and find that they can't cope' and go back on the sick. You can continue using this to continually receive WTC's. Have a read of the above.

I have been reading this thread with great interest. Some of the comments have opened my eyes to things that I didn't think were relevant to either ESA or even DLA. I'll give an explanation as it might help others. I am hospitalised on average every 3 months and stay for about 2/3 weeks. During that time and as a direct result of this particular condition (only one of many) I am not allowed to eat anything. I am fed 'food' through a central line inserted into a blood vessel in my neck. After discharge, I still am not allowed to eat for a week or so and have prescription food drinks. It then takes quite a few weeks for my body to get used to 'normal' food. About once/twice a year I cannot digest solid food and I am fed through a tube in my nose at home for a few weeks. I never realised that (a) being in hospital affected a claim for ESA whilst on the assessment phase and (b) that this method of feeding was worth mentioning for a claim of ESA or DLA. To me it's just normal and I get on with it.

Total household income £900 a month - rent £830 a month? Your rent seems very high. Is it just you and your son in the hosuehold? Are you living in a too expensive property or area, is the home too big for your needs? Maybe part of the answer is to move to a more manageble property. What is the max HB that you can have given your circumstances and age?

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the DWP target areas where it is predicted (on a postal code basis) that an unusually large number of fraudalent claims could exist. As an example, it is more likely that these types of cases (exagerated or fraudalent) will arise in high unemployment hotspots that have a high proportion of young people are single and live on there own with young children and come from a family where no one works as against the likes of living in rural Hertfordshire or Surrey where very few people claim benefits over and above the norm CB and CTC. Try comparing the likes of the poorer areas of Leeds, Bradford, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham with Chipping Norton or Royal Tunbridge Wells. Besides which, I cannot see the problem with regular reviews of say every 12 months. If you are genuine then you will have the required amount of evidence to present to the DWP and have a supporting GP/Consultant.

I think you have answered your own question. Last time I made an application for DLA for my son it took 9 months to sortas I took it to tribunal Are you hoping or suggesting that the LA assume that he will get the award? What happens if he doesn't? How are you going to pay back the overpaid HB? Surely the LA is entitled to only pay a benefit that is based on current known criteria. If the LA or indeed the DWP paid a benefit on the hope and anticipation of you receiving a benefit in say 9 months time, everybody would be asking for the same. I might get every benefit that is known to man if I make a claim, so give me the money now please?

Housing benefit was not an option as our home at the time was on a mortgage. I did claim Council Tax Benefit, and was up front with them all the way. Even to the point of proving that the business was not earning us any money. They have never prosecuted. It seems that I was entitled to it due to low income, shame the DWP couldn't see it that way! All of their argument was about signing on as available for work when I wasn't as I was working full time in the business. They never once disagreed with the fact that I was entitled to help due to having no income, they only concerned themselves that claiming JSA wasn't the correct way of going about it. I did try the CAB at the time but could never get in to see them. I actually asked when I made the telephone JSA claim if having a non earning business would be a problem and was told it wasn't so I never bothered to enter it. Nobody ever mentioned the 16 hour rule to me or any other method of trying to get some money coming in.

I'll add my tuppence. I pleaded guilty to benefit fraud from the outset when questioned by the police after being arrested in a dawn raid at my home. We were so short of money, I mean really short - couldn't pay any bills and the home was under threat of being taken off us. The children were both under 5 at the time. The business I was running was losing money hand over fist, but I just hung in there hoping that somehow I could turn it round. After not being able to buy any food shopping one weekend I decided to claim JSA Income based. I failed to tell them about the business as I couldn't see the reason as it wasn't making any money irrespective of how many hours I worked in it. All of the takings were going out in rent and overheads/costs. Anyhow after about 18 months I got copped by the Social for working and claiming. I admitted it all and showed them that the business had not made any money for the past 18 months although I was working upwards of 40 hours a week in it. Eventually Regina decided to move it to Crown Court due to the amount involved - about £13,000. Some 8 months later I went to Crown pleaded guilty, was told by the Judge that I was a 'parasite on society' and was sent down for 6 months and order to repay the £13,000. I served half of my sentence inside. When I came out, the house had been taken, and all of my goods had been siezed by the bailiffs for other debts. Back to now, I am still having a third of my benefits taken off me and I try to survive. We were home less and slept anywhere throughout one winter. Still owe £1,000's with no hope of ever getting a job as an ex con. So yes, they destroyed my wife's life, my children's lives. They were simply the collateral damage that came with what I did. Now I only have the ability to cause aggravation and annoyance to the DWP left in me. At least one little bit of me knows that it is costing the DWP/Government £1,000's in extra time spent trying to untangle things I do with my claims for benefits as well as to take every decision made by the DWP to the Tribunal which I know also costs them £1,000's I never win, but the feeling of using up their money gives me a bigger satisfaction. I have no idea how much it has cost the government so far but it must be getting on for over £10,000. When I feel that i have reached the £13,000 mark, I'll knock it on the head. It's my only way of hitting back at them for failing to see that I had no choice, had no income and fell foul of only the 16 hour working rule. Looking back now, I could have claimed WTC and probably would have been no worse off than JSA. But I didn't know I could, and no one told me what to do.

If you are on the assessment phase of your ESA claim, then nobody can tell you what to do. If you want to use all of your money to buy 'coke' & booze there is nothing that will stop you. In the work group, yes you can be made to go to work providers, but they cannot make you do anything other than comply with maybe writing out a CV or such like. They certainly cannot force you to take medication, have surgery or attend a detox clinic. Maybe others on here can confirm this for you. i would say that they will try and do it, even to the point of saying that your benefit may get stopped, but they are overstepping their responsibility. Why not go down to the jobcentre and ask the question down there telling them that you are being forced into undergoing counselling as a conditon of you receiving your ESA. Personally, I'd like them to tell me that I should be having an operation that could reduce the length of time that I am able to claim my benefits for! Only if they would promise to pay my wife £1m if I pegged it on the surgeon's table!

Yes supporting letters that have been issued by a doctor, psychiatrist or such like. I had to laugh at the DWP a while ago when after failing an application. I telephoned them to discuss what went wrong, and what further information they could put to the DM when carrying out a reconsideration. They suggested, quite seriously, that maybe there is someone who knows the claimant well enough and sees what her problems are on a day to day basis. Maybe they could write in with a supporting letter. Do you mean me, her husband as I do all of the looking after? Yes she said, a letter like that from you could be of real help. Errr so I'm the husband, I'm the one that looks after her, fine so far, but you are saying that you would believe me when I say that what my wife has claimed for on the claim form is correct? Seriously you wouldn't expect me to say any differeni - I would back her statements up to the hilt, especially if it meant a few more bob a week! If you want to I'll get our daughters and son's in law to write the same as well!! Don't you think that we are all a teenie bit biased and would swear black is white to back up my wife? I never did get any reply - she just suggested that that suggestion may then not be appropriate - too damn right it wasn't It's like giving an alcoholic the front door key to a brewery! As from next April the cooking test has changed under PIP. Gone has that ridiculous situation with a move towards what happens in every day life!

That's if they aren't already snowed under with similar cases for ESA or DLA. My local DIAL told me that I could not be seen for at least 3 months. In common with most areas now in Britain of Welfare Rights workers being given the push by the council, and the long wait for help from the CAB or DIAL as well as AgeUK, I have come across a stunt that is seemingly springing up all over. There are still Welfare Rights Officers that are employed by the councils in the Social Services Dept. Unfortunately to get access to them you have to be in the Social Services system. The way this [problem] is now operated is that if you apply for a Social Services assessment or if you are a 'carer', a Carers assessment, (anybody can apply for these, you don't need a GP referral). Once you get that assessment, you make one of the points as being that you don't know how to apply for a benefit, or are having problems getting a benefit. You will then be referred to the Welfare Rights dept (as you are now 'in the system') and get the best of help, quickly and at no cost to you. Councils are just only waking up to this [problem] so they may in the future put a block on it.

I was in your position for nearly 6 years. I refused to take all and any of my medication for both mental illness and physical illnesses. I even refused to attend any meetings with the GP or the psychiatrist. Instead I hit the bottle big time. I was consuming about one and a half bottles of Irish whisky a day plus anything up to 15 litres of cider. In all of that time I received my benefits without question. No one can make anybody give up the drink if they don't want to. Then to say that if they don't they won't get any benefits income is a step too far.

The rules are quite clear. Those on the assessment stage are not required to carry out anything. If in the work group, yes they are required to undergo some meetings. No one, including the DWP is allowed to make anybody take up any offer of therapy, medication or surgical treatment as a condition of receiving the benefit. They are also not allowed to subject anybody into looking for work or carrying out any activity of a work based function. Next thing we will have is the DWP telling me that I must take my medication as prescribed - no way!! I choose to do that.

No I don't, but from what I know of others with the same condition, as soon as they mentioned the drugs they were having to take to stay alive, it seemed that that was good enough. No I didn't fill in any of that as I said. What I was going on about is this argument that certain conditions dictated whether you got ESA or not. I disagree with that comment for the reasons I said. No one that I know of has ever had any problems getting ESA, but it has nothing to do with the condition. It has all to do with how you come over in the assessment. I didn't - I don't have the patience for idiots that ask stupid questions, they get stupid answers in return. Questions like sitting for 30mins, walking, dizzy, carrying an empty can in one hand, come on, have you any idea what my life consists of I asked him. 3/4 of my life is spent in hospital! I also asked where on earth did he qualify, it certainly wasn't in Europe, more than Somalia!! Despite evidence etc and details of hospital admissions in the past 12 months still gave me nil points! My GP was even worse, he refused to get involved in the argument. Anyhow, he was sacked by me last week, so still looking for a decent GP that understands people not just books. Just hope that I don't get hospitalised whilst still looking and need one within 3 weeks as I need my repeat script filling out by someone. Shame that you can't just opt out of the GP market and deal with the hospital instead, at least they have decent doctors down there.

That's if that someone is actually allowed to go with you into the assessment room and not be told in no uncertain way that the room 'is too small for more than two people - me and your husband!' Obviously I now know different but at the time we didn't. And to be honest even if we did, neither of us was in the frame of mind to start a 'war' in a public waiting room.

I've just picked up on this thread and in particular your reply. If the illness itself drives the points factor, subject of course to degrees, how can it be the case then that according to another forum I am on, one that deals specifically with my major conditon, all and I mean all managed to be accepted onto ESA in one group or another, yet I received 0 points? Also it is a well known fact that certain medications should result in acceptance onto ESA automatically, why then not me? There was enough medical evidence sent in proving the conditon, the complexity of it, the seriousness of it as well as evidence of the medication that had been prescribed. The answer is simple I didn't realise that you had to spend an eternity filling out the ESA50 and reasonably expected the DWP to contact my healthcare providers instead. So it seems that no matter what you conditon is, what drugs you take, you have just as much chance of being awarded ESA than someone who has a 'bad cold' if you expect the decision to be related to the conditon itself.