Working and DWP
I'm now fully retired but I'd like to share my experience of DWP.
To begin let me paint the picture…
Having been at home and isolated for a long time due to health, I decided I'd like to work part time. At the time I was receiving the highest level of PIP and all benefits I was entitled to.
I'd enquired about working permitted hours as I could not bear being stuck doing nothing, and decided that as I held a PCV/LGV licence I'd get an operators licence and start a small minibus business on school contract.
Vehicle purchased and all hoops jumped through, I tendered for and secured a contract with the Council. The local "back to work brigade" helped with various bits and pieces to keep me on the straight and narrow…or so they thought. I declared all earnings and my benefits were reduced accordingly.
Some time later, I received a summons to the Job center for an 'Interview Under Caution'.
Long story short, during the coldest week of the year I had been put under surveillance. by some poor DWP fool sitting in a car waiting to catch me out.
I was filmed getting into the minibus and driving off every day for a week. I was informed I was working whilst claiming and that I was not unfit enough to claim PIP.
I pointed out that I was on permitted hours, and that their filming did not show me returning from the school run. (I'd do the morning run which took 45 minutes, then drive the bus home and park up till the afternoon run, they missed that bit). The interviewers were not happy bunnies.
The result was as they could not get me for working, they found a reason why I should not qualify for PIP, mainly that I could walk round the bus to inspect it, de-ice the windows and unlock the doors, then climb in and drive it, walking in one go a total in excess of the 50 meter limit of the higher rate.
I went back to the "back to work brigade" to tell them about it, "how ridiculous" they said…then dug a little deeper and discovered I was eligible for a backdated £2000 business startup grant. The paperwork was processed and submitted.
As they were unsure of a successful prosecution, I was given a caution by DWP and a demand for a £1200 overpayment which I agreed to pay at £100 a month.
After a while they telephoned to ask me if I wanted to pay less per month. By this time my grant had been approved and so I replied "I'll pay the entire remaining balance now." and I did just that. I then reapplied for PIP and it was granted at a slightly reduced level.
As I said at the beginning, I'm now retired, and I no longer drive.
At the time it was a terrible experience, but now I look back with a satisfied grin.
Comments
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Very well done you, bravo. I love it when people stand up for themselves and win, especially when it's against such big bullies. I mean, yes they were being utterly ridiculous at a time when you were doing what society would deem 'the right thing' by getting back into work, only to be punished for it. I was going to say you can't win, but you did! :)
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I don't understand how anyone can claim enhanced care, but can drive a minibus. Does that not mean you are so disabled you can't dress yourself etc?
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Would the DWP/Government please make its mind up? They claim to want EVERYONE to work, yet when someone who is obviously disabled gets a job, they crucify the poor sods in benefit cuts, do the "Powers that be" want us to work or not?
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But the work can't contradict the conditions/disabilities being claimed. I struggle to understand how anyone can drive a bus, mini or otherwise, if they get the top rates of PIP.
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Driving a vehicle, regardless of it's size is no different to driving a car. To the uninitiated it may seem a daunting prospect (Ok getting into a full height articulated lorry has it's difficulties but once you're in it's a doddle). Two or three pedals and a steering wheel. In fact, getting into a double deck bus is easier than a car, you walk in and sit down. I have colleagues driving buses who are both single and double leg amputees and it's not unusual to see a professional driver with a prosthetic hand. They get full mobility allowance which is the PIP section I was referring to.
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How does not dressing yourself stop you driving? Even now I cannot put socks on, cut my toenails or lace up shoes without assistance. Most of the time I would drive in slip on crocs without socks. As for driving a mininbus, some cars of today are the same size. Where there is a will etc.
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I am not going to argue against what you claim, btw, I had my LGV and PCV licences medically revoked. I just don't think you can blame the DWP for being suspicious in the first place.
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Thank you for sharing this. It sounds like an incredibly stressful experience to go through, especially when you were doing everything properly and being open about your work. The way you handled the overpayment, however, is absolutely brilliant. Using a backdated government business startup grant to pay off a DWP debt is pure poetic justice. You honestly could not write a better ending to that situation.
I am really glad you came out the other side of that difficult time and can now look back on it with a satisfied grin. Wishing you a very happy and well deserved retirement.
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Not blaming them at all, however, you have to admit that when DWP were informed of what I intended doing (and approved it every step of the way), When flagged by an anonymous phone call , to forget to tell their own enforcement dept (or them to forget to check) and have some poor minion freeze his bits off sitting in the snow for a week is comical.
Had I known I'd have filled his flask 😁
I had my professional licences revoked after a heart attack, but it was reinstated shortly after when I underwent and passed a thorough heart test at the hospital.
I carried on driving school buses until my arthritis was getting bad, and with with the introduction of the "Drivers CPC" I just let them expire along with my operator's licences.
I'm not missing driving one bit now.1 -
I just can't accept that someone so disabled as to be unable to dress themself, that they would be safe in charge of a bus load of school children! What about the safe transport of a child in a wheelchair, or if there was an accident?
In my years of bus driving, the only 'disabled' driver out of a workforce of hundreds, he had several fingers missing from a previous occupation, and he wouldn't have taken kindly to the idea he had a disability.
It doesn't matter what I think about it anyway, but i am pretty gobsmacked, quite frankly.
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Fairy Snuff… Here endeth the lesson 😁
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