Pip descion tribunal

vgg

Hi there, I have just received a statement or reasons for decisions, from my appeal to the first tier tribunal  (pip) for me to take them to the upper tier. Depression and anxiety,  suffered since 2002. Was awarded lower daily rate pip from 2017-2019. They have not taken into account all my issues. Any advice on how or what to do with regards to taking them to the upper tier?

poppy123456

Hi and welcome,

You will need to speak to an advice agency near you and take the statement of reasons with you for them to take a look to see if they can find the error in law. If that’s not found then you won’t be able to take this any further. 

Not taking all your conditions into consideration doesn’t mean it’s an error in law.

Difficult for anyone to advise on an Internet forum because no one knows anything about your case. 

BenefitsTrainingCo

You can only go to the upper tribunal on an error of law, and it's quite hard to do this without the help of a specialist welfare rights adviser/lawyer. It can be an error of law to fail to take things into account (which is what seems to have happened here), so it is possible, but you'd have to show that the issues they failed to take into account were relevant to the PIP activities, and that the tribunal had evidence of them.
As for how, and what specifically to do, first of all you need to apply for permission to appeal to the first tier tribunal. You need to do that in writing, giving details of the errors of law you think they made (politely - you could say, for example, that it appears they failed to take into account certain issues which are relevant to the PIP activities, explain what these are & state that the tribunal knew about them but seem to have failed to take them into account).
You need to make sure you give the reference for the tribunal decision (they deal with loads of course, so this is really important), and it helps to be clear about what you think the result should have been (points you should have scored, why, and what the resulting PIP award should have been).

Hope that helps and hope you get somewhere! Because going to the upper tier is difficult, is it worth applying for PIP again in the meantime? (Especially if you didn't get any award at all?)

Will

vgg

So I have received the statement of reasons from the court. Do I reply to this with the reasons I feel there has been and injustice.  Or do I take this to a solicitor to look at first to see if there has been an error of law?

poppy123456

I agree that face to face advice and help is definitely needed here. Start with welfare rights and put your postcode into this link to see what's local to you. https://advicelocal.uk/

Chloe_Scope

Welcome to the community @vgg.

Alice_Holt

Additionally the error of law has to be sufficient for you to have forgone an award as a direct consequence of that error. 

So, if the error related to, say, a descriptor worth 2 points. Then:
If you had 6 points, that error is significant as had the error not been made you would have 8 points (and an award);
But If you had only 2 points, that error would not have made a difference to the outcome. As you would only get 4 points - insufficient for an award. 

As Will and poppy have suggested, see if a Welfare Rights Charity / Citizens Advice can give you a steer. However Upper Tier Tribunal appeals are quite specialist.
Did you have help with your appeal?

An example of an error in law would be if the tribunal had preferred one set of evidence to another, without adequate justification in their S of R.  Or It did not provide adequate reasons for its decisions.

Did you attend the hearing?
Did you request to attend, but were unable to do so?

One option, of course, is to re-apply for PIP.


This will help you:
https://www.scope.org.uk/advice-and-support/further-appeal-upper-tribunal/