Have just picked up the following case, bear with my description because it is truly mind boggling.

Client reports diagnosis of Encephalpathy and Subacute combined degeneration which affects balance and has caused partial paralysis of the lower half her body.

Clients entitlement started 12/02/91 (very relevant in this case).

Client notify's DBC - Blackpool July 2004 that she is moving to France to live permanently Sept 2004. Then just a day before she boards the ferry, the payments of her high care component and her Motability car are withdrawn/repossessed summarily?

It appears when she notified them that in early July 2004 of the above move to France, the DM reviewing the case in the late Sept 2004 realised that there had been a clerical error by the DBC concerning a decision by a tribunal 20/04/95 to award high care and mob from 06/04/94 to 05/04/97 had been inputted into the DBC computer system as a life time award.So she was not invited to make a renewal claim Nov 96.

Above DM STOPS DLA PAYMENTS FROM 15/09/2004.

(Incidentally, the above is further compounded by further official error - letter dated 13/01/98 states High care awarded from 06/04/92 for life and High mob awarded from 06/04/94 for life).

Anyway, letter dated mid oct 2004 admits to error, and says sorry and we will deal with your enquiry etc?;letter dated end of March 2005 sorry we haven't done anything yet scenario.

letter dated early April 2005 "awfully sorry etc" and errrrrrrr a explanation along the lines of DM looked at papers found mistake, passes (sept 2004) it to specialist section to check decision and to ask advice on what to do.

So specialist section advise DM to obtain "fresh medical evidence in the form of a medical report", however it drags on and on and at that stage April a EMP visit was predicted as end of May 2005 (apparently it's all the fault of the French?)says letter.

09/09/2005 - DBC letter - initially repeats admission of error.

then states the following " Normally where the award on the DLA computer system does not match the legal decision, a decision maker will advise the customer and offer to reconsider the decision that was incorrectly put in. Because your decision to award benefit was made by the Tribunal Service (i.e. a tribunal not commissioners) the decision maker cannot do a reconsideration of this. This is because the Tribunal Service is a higher adjudicating authority than a decision maker. We have sought advice from our guidance section and they have told us that we need to obtain further grounds to change the tribunal service's decision.The decision maker cannot make any further decisions about your entitlement to benefit without establishing your care and mobility needs from 06/04/97. we requested a medical report from a visiting doctor in NOV 2004. Unfortunately due to a major re-organisation by the French authorities the medical report was only completed 27/07/2005. In the meantime, the decision maker obtained a report from your French doctor, but this report did not give the decision maker enough information to make a new decision".

Anyway to paraphrase the next paragraph blah blah blah decision maker can't make a decision as we have not got the medical report translated into English (incidentally French doctor didn't appear to know anything about DLA according to client).

Next DBC letter 30/09/2005 - from special payments team again acknowledgement of error - errrrrrrrr ???? titled "claim for misdirection"

Basically, goes along the lines of!

i have been asked to see if you can get ex-statutory payments of DLA from mid Sept 2004 and whether we can pay you whilst you live in France.Well your entitlement to DLA ended 1997, and that there is no legal requirement to make special payments, but hey we will this time.
From Sept 2004 to Oct 2005 and in the DM'S opinion you meet the criteria for an award of the low care component and High Mob between 2004 to 2005.

Sorry for the long explanation, but they appear to be treating her entitlement to DLA ending 1997; between 1997 and Sept 2004 as unrecoverable overpayments; and Sept 2004 to Oct 2005 as glorified ex gratia payments for their bungling with no right to appeal.

Any thoughts, observations, ideas, tactics and strategies anyone would like to share with what's left of my addled brain

andy

Bloody hell!

No real time to pick this one apart, but....

Looks to me like the decision to award HRM and LRC from Sept 04 is a decision and appealable - an ex-gratia payment/non-recoverable o/p would surely have to be made at the same rate as the last awarding decision (as appears to have happened for the period 97-04).

But for the period Sept 04 onwards the DM has clearly taken a view as to her disabilities and the qualifying criteria (despite the earlier statement that they didn't have sufficient info to make an award) and made a decision. I'd wack in an appeal and request that it be forwarded to a LQPM for determination if they refuse to accept....

(Not to hijack your thread but I've clearly done something myself to upset one particular DM at Blackpool...

Client in receipt of LRM and MRC for epilepsy, reduced to nada on renewal. I wack in an appeal (dated 4/11/05 for a deadline 13/11/05), the basic terms of which are that full account not taken of disabilities as outlined in claim form and client's assertion that no improvement in circs since last award.

A week later client (and not me, the named rep) receives a letter demanding to know grounds for appeal. I assert valid appeal already made and they can pass to an LQPM if they want to put it to the test - oh, and please can you keep me in the loop in future?

Today I receive a letter demanding to know why the appeal was made late!!! :mad: :mad: )

I've found that Blackpool aren't always sending the appeal bundle to me as named rep. In one instance the Advisers Line told me a letter had been sent in Oct 05....neither client nor I had received it. I ask for copies of the "letter". Next thing client gets a "struck out for not returning the TAS1" letter from TAS....nothing sent to me. Then I receive a copy of the appeal bundle with a note on the front saying it was sent to me, the client and the appeals service in Oct 05. If the bundle had been sent to me then TAS would have written to me as well as to the client when the appeal was struck out. I was starting to feel paranoid, so I'm glad its not just me that is being kept out of the loop

Hi ya, i think i will follow your advice - i've spoken to the Special Payments Team as a fact finding mission and they said they will send me a written statement of reasons (for their actions) i hesitate to use the word decisions because in this particular case i think it will be quite handy along with all the other evidence.


As for your thread, i've had similar strange happenings, including a Supervisor at the now defunct Sutton DBC saying "what's wrong with you people why can't you accept no for an answer" all i did was ring them to make sure they had received the appeal (Client was visually impaired i.e. blind, severe emphysema and schizophrenic).

see ya andy