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ESA – migration cases – inaccurate IRESA assessments?
PAC evidence session with Daphne, and also Geoff Fimister from the Disability Benefits Consortium, starting now:
https://www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/e0959b17-0039-4c13-8f20-9903245d3ed9
Uncorrected minutes of the evidence session:
Following the session yesterday the Director of Working Age Benefits who was also giving evidence has contacted me to ask if it would be helpful to have a system of prioritising particularly vulnerable claimants in the trawl. She says -
We have our lists that we’re working through within an overall prioritisation, but if there are particularly vulnerable cases that you know about I think we should look at having a sensible way for you to ask us to bring them to the top of the pile.
I’d welcome your views on how we would control this and what kind of numbers we might see, because if we are suddenly inundated with requests it would just throw the whole delivery plan out.
Have people got views about this which I can pass on?
Following on from the last post we have now agreed with the DWP that if you identify really vulnerable clients who are still missing out on irESA and you want to get them prioritised in the trawl then I have an email contact we can use to get this actioned.
I appreciate that all claimants affected by this are probably going to be vulnerable but it is agreed on the basis that it is reserved for the most vulnerable as if it gets overused it will be withdrawn.
Please direct message/email me if you would like the email address.
PS I’m not in work today so might not pick any up till next week but I will reply then
I have just spoken to one of the team at Oldham who are doing the trawl. (They are very helpful people.) They’ve told me that their brief is to look at entitlement to income-based ESA at the point of migration (or 21/10/14) only. If the claimant became entitled at a later date, the Oldham team will send them a letter telling them that they are not entitled to income-based ESA. I have been sent a copy of the letter that they have sent to my client. The letter does not inform the client that they may entitled from a later date. So, these claimants will fall through the net again. As will claimants who have made new claims to ESA and been paid contribution-based only.
I have yet to have a client for whom the process is instigated by Oldham. With all of the clients that I have had so far, I have identified their entitlement to income-based ESA and completed an ESA 3 from our stock of forms. I have then asked for backdating to the date they became entitled to income-based ESA - the date of migration in most cases.
The trawl is only picking up people who missed out because the migration assessment was not done properly. So the ESA3 has to be completed as circumstances were on the day that particular person migrated. If they were entitled to ir ESA on that date then ESA3s will be done for every change of circumstances since then to work out what they were entitled to between migration date and now. Once that is calculated backdating will be limited to 21/10/14 and that is what will be paid. (if CPAG’s JR is successful they will have the information on the system to pay the full backdating)
If they weren’t entitled at the point of migration then the failure to pay ir ESA is for a different reason - possibly that the claimant didn’t notify a relevant change of circumstances.
Where there has been a new claim since then hopefully the claimant will have been assessed for both - the reason things went wrong on the migration is that there was a policy of just automatically putting IB claimants onto cont ESA and IS claimants onto irESA without looking into circumstances properly. Hopefully this has not been such an issue with new claims but I may be wrong…
Unfortunately, it has been ( and possibly still is) a problem with new claims. And I’m still having ESA staff on call backs telling me that the extra income-based ESA can only be backdated for 3 months…
That’s helpful to know - I will raise that via stakeholders…
Sec State has agree that my case before the F-tT should be stayed pending the outcome of DS so presumably that will apply to any others as well
I also applied for a stay pending outcome of DS, however I’ve not heard anything yet in response.
Is there a hearing date for DS yet?
Department for Communities in N Ireland is not limiting backdating -
If someone was underpaid, arrears will be payable from the date their case was reassessed and transferred to ESA
https://twitter.com/CommunitiesNI/status/1011613652317859842/photo/1
R(DS) v SSWP (renumbered on transfer into the UT as JR/1249/2018) will be heard by a three judge panel of the UT on 15th and 16th October 2018.
We are expecting the SSWP to file her detailed grounds of defence and evidence by end of today.
anyone know when we might have a decision on sk?
I have one ut case put on hold pending either or and have just requested a ftt case on this issue be as well.
R(DS) v SSWP (renumbered on transfer into the UT as JR/1249/2018) will be heard by a three judge panel of the UT on 15th and 16th October 2018.
We are expecting the SSWP to file her detailed grounds of defence and evidence by end of today.
... they have just applied for a (further) two week extension to file their case.
anyone know when we might have a decision on sk?
I have one ut case put on hold pending either or and have just requested a ftt case on this issue be as well.
Application has been made to Court of Session. Will update when any further news.