Confused about the new high court ruling

Rubie123

Hi everyone, hope all is as well as it can be for you all.

I'm confused about the high court ruling regarding PIP.

I finally received my PIP award letter so I can now see the points awarded for the various activities.

I received 2 points for engaging face to face with others. In the past I have only been given 0 points for this activity.

Family members are telling me I need to get in touch with DWP as I should be owed back pay going back years. I totally don't have a clue what they're all talking about and they're all moaning at me for not taking any action. I'm happy my award was raised to enhanced from standard but to give the family some definite answers would be really useful. It will get them off my back for a start!

Can anyone shed any light on this please?

Albus_Scope

Heya @Rubie123 you'll need to get in touch with the DWP regarding this and ask for your award to be passed over to the "change in law department" who will then assess your award. You'd only receive backpay if the extra points would increase your current PIP award. Hope that helps. 😊

Rubie123

Hi Albus.

Thank you. I think this is what I'm confused about.

I know I've never received points for engaging with peple face to face and my award has always been standard. Now suddenly I have enough points to receive enhanced. I've only ever had 11 points for daily living now for the first time I have 13.

chiarieds

Hi @Rubie123 - there's some info here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/personal-independence-payment-changes/social-support-changes-to-pip-law-from-6-april-2016

• it's not about your current award, but, depending upon when you've previously been claiming PIP, earlier awards on/after 6 Apr 2016 (if an award hadn't been made by a tribunal)
• the change in PIP law has been applied to reviews since 17 Sept 2020

Rubie123

Ok. Thank you. So all of my previous awards didn't give me points for engaging face to face but now after a MR that was turned down and was looked at again before it reached the tribunal, I was awarded the points this time.

Sorry if I sound dumb but the more I read the answers the clearer it becomes and I need it to make sense before I approach DWP. I'm not good at relaying clearly what I need so if it doesn't make sense to me I sure can't get DWP to make sense of what I'm saying.

poppy123456

As you never received any points for that descriptor they will not look at your claim again. If you had scored 2 points for needing prompting then yes they would have looked at the decision again.

What you should have done at the time was challenge the decision. Please have a read of the link posted by chiarieds above and it does explain it.

Rubie123

Thank you. I'll just keep reading what everyone has contributed here until it makes sense to me.

poppy123456

Did you read the link posted? This does explain it here.. please take note of the part in bold. As you didn't score any points for this activity they won't look at your claim again. The last sentence refers to those that weren't awarded daily living at all.

What this means for you

We are looking at PIP claims from people who may be affected by this change. This includes looking again at some claims we decided on or after 6 April 2016, where PIP was awarded because of needing ‘prompting’ to engage with other people face to face. We will now consider whether they needed ‘social support’. This includes some claims where we did not award PIP.

Rubie123

Yeah thanks. I actually get it now and have managed to get 3 out of 5 family members off my back. 3 down 2 to go!