MH leap exercise issue

Hi All

I have a client who has received a letter from PIP in regard to the case of MH.
The letter states that they cannot look into her award following a decision made by an Appeal Tribunal (there was one) but can check decisions made since and look again at awards, more generally, if there has been a change.
The client is asked to contact PIP if she would like the claim to be looked at again and issues a warning about the whole award being considered and the possible loss of benefit.
What I don’t understand is that;
1. If PIP have identified a possible award (there is one) after the Appeal Tribunal decision, why aren’t they just reviewing it as per the LEAP exercise rather than putting the ball in the client’s court?
2. My understanding of reviews following MH was that there were assurances that they would not result in a reduction in existing awards but the warning on the letter suggests otherwise.

Has anyone else seen letters like this or have any views?

Many thanks

I think I have the same letter on my desk.

The relevant part says:

Unfortunately we cannot look at PIP claims where a decision was made by an Appeal Tribunal. We do not have the legal powers to change these decisions.

We can check any other decisions we have made since your Appeal Tribunal to see if you are affected by the changes in the law.

We can also look at your award if the amount of help you need has changed and you have not already told us.

If you would like us to look again at your PIP award, please contact us using the details on the front page of this letter. If we need more information we will contact you to request this.

If you ask us to look again at your award, we will have to review it in full, not just because of the change in the law. We may need to ask you to attend an assessment. We will let you know if this is the case.

Our decision on your claim may change. It could go up, down, stay the same or stop. You will be able to appeal this decision if you think we have got it wrong.

The proposition that an FtT decision can’t be changed (or at least revised/superseded for error of law) by the DWP is of course correct. They would be able to revise a subsequent decision of their own for error of law based on the decisions being considered by the LEAP exercise.

I think the letter rather confuses the issue a bit because it raises one concept (asking for an old decision to be looked at under LEAP) and then another concept (asking for a ground up review based on a change of circumstances) and then it elides the two, so it seems to suggest that in asking for the former, you would be risking your ongoing PIP award which is not the case.

You ask why the DWP can’t just consider their subsequent decisions for themselves under LEAP without the claimant needing to positively invite this. That’s a fair question.

Yes, this is definitely the same letter.
I agree it is confusing and would imply a risk if the client were to proceed.

Agree that the letter is quite confusing, almost as if by design. My client rang the number given on the letter to request a review for a period not covered by a tribunbal decision. She says that she only got to speak to a computer, not a human, and after the third time it asked for her phone number she hung up on it.