PIP claim /DLA renewal

[fletch70]

That will be interesting as they have no record of the visit made by someone from capita on 7th Oct. I however can prove that they visited

[reallymadwoman]

Some issues I can see with this

1. Extremely poor record keeping

2. Providing misleading advice/information - presumably it will be relevant to the DM if you had that visit or not.

3. If they can't get something so basic right, how can you rely on anything else?

4. Basic health and safety for domicilary visits. For all they know, you're a mad axe murderer and that employee that visited you is now under your patio but they have no record of the visit so can't tell the police where to start looking!

[Bazooka Boo]

That will be interesting as they have no record of the visit made by someone from capita on 7th Oct. I however can prove that they visited

 

Then you can highlight their failings when they send you the info, slowly slowly catchy monkey, can't wait for the demise of this outfit.

[reallymadwoman]

Many, many moons ago all teaching staff were required to do an online course to prove we could use the new technology, run by Capita. It took about three days of failed log in attempts and crashes before we were all putting an r after the first letter of their name. I was relieved when the PIP assessors were announced and I wasn't in their area, but then I found out I was stuck with ATOS instead .....

[Bazooka Boo]

(cr@pita!)

[fletch70]

I think it is wrong that the DWP are classed as the data controller as Capita are a private company being paid by the DWP to do a job.

I have a complaint with capita and have been waiting for the reply however,due to a 'system error' it did not get posted . Although the benefits directorate in Yorkshire told me that there is no reason why they could not email it to me, Capita said they could not . I told Capita that my MP was still awaiting their response as well-which is true

[fletch70]

I know I have been going on a bit but I am wondering what is the best way to complain about a capita pip assessment.

 

It is factually incorrect which start on the front page with the time and length of the assessment . It is claimed it started at 10.15 and finished at 11.13. In fact it started at 11.52 and lasted 85 minutes

 

There is zero mention of the previous assessment done 6 weeks before ,in fact capita and the dwp have no record, I have a recording

 

In the drugs list , two are wrong doses, I.e one a third of what I take and one half and one is missing all together

 

In the observations he has told lies and/or put things completely out of context for example saying that I said I could cook a simple one course meal when actually he asked me if I could cook beans on toast .

[antone]

I presume you mean an administrative complaint about the conduct of the assessment rather than an appeal against the outcome, yes?

 

My suggestion would be to complain to the DWP in writing first. Send it to the office that processes your benefit, and mark the outside of the envelope "Formal Complaint" so that it goes to the right section. You could also send a complaint direct to Capita - their contact information can be found here.

[reallymadwoman]

You could possibly also complain to whichever professional body the assessor belongs to. Their name and qualifications should be stated on the report.

[fletch70]

Antone and RMW thank you

 

I do have a complaint in with Capita that should have been answered by 3rd Dec but amazingly I have not had a response. That complaint regards the fact that they did an assessment on 7th Oct and two weeks later they phoned to say they needed a bit more info.

 

I have phoned several times and got nowhere

 

the complaint has also gone through my MP and the DWP , the benefits directorate in Yorkshire wrote saying that capita should respond , when i spoke to the directorate they suggested capita should be able to email me the answer, capita refused

 

Then we go on to the 2nd assessment , apart from the fact it is a farce and full of lies and as i said mistakes, you can even see where the guy has cut n paste the wrong bits into the reasons box

Even before I received the decision I asked for the PA4 V3 on 3 occasions and am still waiting although the request i made to ken in the Yorkshire Directorate did bear fruit .

 

I will write to the benefits directorate at the address on the letter

[reallymadwoman]

When dealing with a complaint to ATOS, when they hadn't responded according to their own timescales I wrote again stating that I wished to add their failure to respond within the time limits to my complaint and also asking to escalate the complaint to the next stage.

When I complained to DWP, they just passed it on to ATOS, which they were criticised for when it when to the adjudicator.

[Bazooka Boo]

Hmm, I will try to control my language....

 

So they are still acting with impunity!

 

I can't really add anything to this except I feel for you I really do, I'm in the fourth year of demanding info off the DWP of which they are still ignoring.

 

Keep everything in writing and a diary of events, and use your MP as much as you're able, they should have ultimate control over this corrupt department, so each time they say they have done all they can do, then that should be a red rag to a bull, well it will be for me!

 

As with all things, it won't happen overnight, I have a complaint with the ICE regarding the last four years fighting the DWP, but their case load is huge by all accounts!

 

Document everything, record everything, keep a diary, names dates times, the whole nine yards.

[fletch70]

Capita are indeed acting with impunity and I am sick of it

 

I have sent a SAR as well. It is unbelievable that they are trying to erase a visit to my home from history , I thought that sort of thing only happened in Star Trek!

 

The lies and half truths that the last assessor made are unbelievable , as I said 7 pages of demolishing the report almost line by line.

 

If the report wasn't cut and paste then it was a proforma that all they needed to do was add a few words , the same phrases and words come up time and time again

 

Even on the points they gave me the reasoning makes no sense what soever

 

I am in danger of letting the whole thing take over my life , the joys of being mildly obsessive or having an addictive personality

[Bazooka Boo]

The cut & paste trick is exactly what was used in my WCA, and no amount of pointing it out, resulted in anyone remarking on it, we know they're corrupt, so we just have to be one step ahead of them, they rely on us either dying, committing suicide or just giving up before they will make a decision.

 

Unfortunately, I'm like a dog with a bone, and next year I can see me being in my MP's office on a monthly basis demanding to know why they treat human beings with so much contempt.

[Lapsed Workaholic]

Fletch70

 

You are right that you have been going on a bit about the difficulties that you are experiencing in your application for ESA and I'm sure nobody is more disappointed than yourself that satisfactory progress appears to be very slow.

 

Disability Rights UK published a factsheet on their website which gives a comprehensive outline on how the Work Capability Assessment should be conducted. You will find it at the link:

 

http://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/work-capability-assessment

 

Citizens Advice also provide advice on Work Capability Assessments You will find it at the link:

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/sick-or-disabled-people-and-carers/employment-and-support-allowance/help-with-your-esa-claim/esa-medical-assessment/

 

Once you have got an understanding of what the Assessment process involves and the proper procedures for administering it the next step would be to determine and list where the procedures and administration as applied in your particular case deviated, or were omitted, from those stated as being required procedures and administrative practices.

 

The next step would be to describe the effect that those deviations/omissions had on you and, probably more importantly, how you believe they affected the outcome of the Assessment.

 

You could also include instances where evidence from previous assessments, interviews and written submissions was omitted/ignored, and the opportunity to provide input during the Assessment was misrepresented, denied or ignored.

You could also include a list of the occasions when you appealed/called for information/clarification and were ignored or fobbed off.

 

Having got all you have to say written down in some sort of objective order you are then ready to make a formal complaint of maladministration. The DWP publication "Financial Redress for Maladministration", although it deals primarily with financial redress, it also gives a comprehensive definition of maladministration and how to determine whether or not it applies in your particular case. Copies of this publication may be downloaded at this link:

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/422425/financial-redress-maladministration-apr-15.pdf

 

There is no reason for not copying you completed formal written complaint to all and every individual, body, organisation and department involved in your case, if you wish to, especially if you hold them responsible for the maladministration.

 

If no satisfaction is forthcoming after all that you are free to make your complaint to the Ombudsman. The following link gives details of how to do this:

 

http://www.publiclawproject.org.uk/data/resources/115/PLP_2006_How_to_Complain_to_Ombudsman.pdf

 

 

 

Another description of maladministration:

http://web.archive.org/web/20120210200549/http://www.adrnow.org.uk/go/SubPage_85.html

What is maladministration?

The Cambridge online dictionary defines maladministration as ‘lack of care, judgment or honesty in the management of something’.

 

But the law does not define maladministration. When the public service ombudsmen were set up, parliament left it for the ombudsmen to decide the meaning of the word.

 

When parliament was debating the Bill to set up the Parliamentary Ombudsman in 1967, Richard Crossman said that maladministration included "bias, neglect, inattention, delay, incompetence, ineptitude, perversity, turpitude and so on". In a court case in 1979 Lord Denning particularly liked the ‘and so on’ at the end. He said: "It would be a long and interesting list, clearly open-ended, covering the manner in which a decision is reached or discretion is exercised..."

 

The Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) investigates complaints about local authority services in England. Its 2008 leaflet suggests that you may want to complain about:

 

• administrative fault, such as the council making a mistake or not following its own rules
  
• poor service or no service
  
• delay
  
• bad advice
  

The LGO also has a section for advisors on its website which offers a longer list of things which could be maladministration:

 

• delay
  
• incorrect action or failure to take any action
  
• failure to follow procedures or the law
  
• failure to provide information
  
• inadequate record-keeping
  
• failure to investigate
  
• failure to reply
  
• misleading or inaccurate statements
  
• inadequate liaison
  
• inadequate consultation
  
• broken promises
  

The Parliamentary Ombudsman investigates complaints about government departments. This is her list of things which indicate maladministration:

 

• failure to provide a service
  
• delay that could have been avoided
  
• faulty procedures, or failing to follow correct procedures
  
• not telling you about any rights of appeal open to you
  
• unfairness, bias or prejudice
  
• giving advice which is misleading or inadequate
  
• refusing to answer reasonable questions
  
• rudeness and not apologising for mistakes
  
• mistakes in handling your claims
  
• not putting things right when something has gone wrong
  

Injustice

There is no fixed ombudsman definition of injustice, but it basically means that the maladministration must have caused problems for you. The Local Government Ombudsman suggests that this could include:

 

• hurt feelings, distress, worry, or inconvenience
  
• loss of right or amenity
  
• not receiving a service
  
• financial loss or unnecessary expense
  
• time and trouble in pursuing a justified complaint
  

The hardship or injustice you have suffered must have been caused by a fault by the organisation you are complaining about. The other thing to bear in mind is that the problems must be quite serious. The ombudsman can decide not to investigate a complaint if you are only slightly affected.

 

The Civil Service Code lays out what is expected of Civil Servants. That includes Jobcentre staff and sub-contractors of government services such as Capita.

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-code/the-civil-service-code

So, that, briefly, is the best way to complain, hope it helps.

 

 

 

 

 

 

PS: I've decimated the quote and provided a link to the original article.

 

 

PPS: Fletch, do you think the precise benefit for which you are being assessed has a bearing on complaints about how it was conducted? My response could be applied to any form of assessment for any form of benefit.

[fletch70]

Thanks for the reply. Just to clarify though it is not a WCA but a PIP assessment . I went through the WCA in 2011 and won the tribunal in 2012.

I appreciate that PIP is a contentious issue however my belief is that they should not fail someone by being duplicitous which Capita are being .

Without my MP intervening and hence the benefits directorate contacting me I would still be waiting for my PA4v3 . My deadline is 28th Dec but obviously with Christmas post etc if I don't get it posted by the weekend I will likely miss the deadline.

[honeybee13]

Lapsed, we're only meant to quote about 10% of any offsite material.

 

Would you be able to pare down your post and give us a link to where you're quoting from please?

 

HB

[fletch70]

I really don't know how I missed this

 

On the front page of the PA4 V3 document there is a list of evidence that they used as well as the claim form

 

The 'evidence' was mainly things submitted under a renewal of DLA in March this year . Since march things have become worse so i submitted a new claim under new circumstances with new evidence yet they ignored all of it

[Lapsed Workaholic]

The question remains; do you intend to lodge a formal complaint against DWP or Capita?

 

On your own admission you are only now becoming aware of things that you had overlooked which were relevant to your assessment. This would suggest that you were not adequately prepared and this state of affairs is fatal because you may rest assured that your assessors would have every angle covered, an assessment of your competences, abilities and character would have been made long before you appeared before them.

 

Those assessors may not be medically qualified in the true sense of the term but they will certainly be fully versed in finding and exploiting administrative loopholes, weaknesses in the cases they assess. That basically is their job, to prevent claimants, by fair means or foul, from being successful in their claim irrespective of medical evidence. Once a suspected weakness is discovered then they bring every administrative trick in the book to bear in order to circumvent/play down the medical evidence and drive home their advantage.

 

No good crying over spilt milk, however, we are where we are, the situation you now find yourself in can only be redeemed by making a formal complaint of foul play having been used; i.e. maladministration, if that is what you still maintain and if you wish to proceed.

 

I have already set out for you a blueprint of how to go about doing that by preparing lists of all the instances where you suspect foul play and the evidence to back up each assertion, I don't know the detailed ins and outs of all the instances of which you complain, so only you can do that. Once you have decided to go ahead and do that then, if you wish, you have only to ask for any further assistance you may require with objective confirmation/presentation of your detailed findings.

[fletch70]

LW

If you read what I said I was referring to the PA4 which is sent on request after the decision has been made . I was however unprepared for a full assessment on 17th because I was told it was a few additional questions after an assessment on 7th Oct. As a result assumptions were made

There is a complaint in with capita and I received an explanatory phone call yesterday because their post system seems useless.

What I am after is an accurate decision and if that means no benefit so be it however I believe that I do qualify after having received 5 points . Apparently Caputa may ask another HCP to look at the evidence.

 

It appears that, what has confused them, or given them the opportunity to screw me , is that there is all the paperwork on file from my previous claim and some of that was used in spite of more current documents being available.

[Lapsed Workaholic]

Fletch, I did read what you wrote and I believe that I understood it too. Had I not I would not have responded. You wrote: " I really don't know how I missed this" in reference to the evidence being used in pursuance of your claim.

That is a frank admission of an omission on your part somewhere along the line. If what you missed was not relevant or pertinent to the pursuit of your complaint, and unlikely to affect it, then why are you attaching importance to it now?

 

The rest of my post was my own opinions, rightly or wrongly, of how those people, assessors and those who watch their backs, operate and why one should be prepared for anything, fair or foul.

It would be reasonable to assume that your new claim was lodged as a result of a previous claim being unsuccessful. It would also be reasonable to assume, from your remarks so far as I understand them, that the assessments conducted on 7th October was in pursuance of your new claim and that what you say turned out to be another assessment six weeks later was initially represented to you as a sort of continuation, for what you took to be further clarification purposes, of the assessment of the 7th Oct?

It would also be reasonable to assume that new evidence documents, and none of the old, were submitted in pursuance of the new claim. In fact you make reference to this new evidence and that it was being totally ignored.

If any of the evidence documents submitted in pursuance of the previous claim were submitted in pursuance of the new claim then it would be unreasonable to suppose that the assessors would not to use it, especially if, and you can bet your boots they did, see it as a way to reject your new claim. Did you provide documents for your new claim that were provided/used in the old claim?

Now it seems to me that this is the crux of your complaint, the evidence that was or was not taken into account in making a decision on your new clam. It should not take a genius to figure out that evidence which resulted in a negative outcome of a previous claim would have the same result if used in a new claim.

What worries me, and gives me cause for concern about the outcome of your complaint, is that the points you missed and don't know why are the very points that should be the basis for your complaint. If you did not use the evidence issues as the basis of you complaint it would be interesting to know what you did use and based it on.

[intree]

On pip or going to be in the transition - contact your mp

contact your MP

IF YOU CAN NOT SEE HIM/HER ON THIS PETITION:

 

 

http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2015-16/824

[fletch70]

Lapsed

We may have crossed wires here.

 

The PA4 is the report done by the assessor and sent to the dwp. The claimant I.e. Me only gets a copy if they ask for it. When I received the copy it was too late to do anything to influence my assessment, it was over. A claimant is not told what documents are being looked at.

 

Non of the documents submitted for my first claim were also submitted for the new one , everything was fresh and up to date.

Clearly if I had used old evidence I would have expected it to also be used.

 

You are correct in that the assessment on 17th was 'sold' to me under the pretext of just needing some extra information hence I assumed that all the previous assessment from 7th Oct would be used and I wouldn't need to repeat myself. Actually the assessment on the 7th had been discounted , as it turns out because the assessor was worried I would challenge her interpretation of the law. If I had known this I would have been more prepared with a copy of my notes to hand .

Because the assessor used old evidence it clearly did not equate to what he saw or I said, he therefore assumed I was not being truthful.

 

Anyway, all is in hand. Request for MR in with the most up to date list of medication and letters. The letters very much say what the ones said back in August

 

I will say that my MP has been excellent and there has been some progress with both the DWP and Capita talking to me at a higher level than the normal phone people. They have written off some overpayment because it was their mistake and I believe Capita are going yo recall the file and get an office based assessor to review it.

All I am asking for is a fair assessment. If they come back with a justifiable no then do be it . If they continue to tell me that ready meals and beans on toast qualify as a simple meal cooked from fresh ingredients I will fight on.

 

As for your other question. There is a complaint in with capita to which I should have the response by special delivery tomorrow and there is a complaint in with the DWP.

I do not expect any movement on this between now and xmas possibly until the new year.

[fletch70]

On 18th Nov I sent a SAR to Capita which they claimed to have received on 22nd . Using this date tomorrow will be the 40 days

 

Today in the post I received a letter from the SAR team at the DWP asking me to fill in a form for what I wanted.

 

Is anyone in accountable within DWP/Capita for failure to comply with the ICO limit of 40 days

[Nystagmite]

Have you included the recent bank holidays in those 40 days?