Update on pip

CT1

Hi just wanted to keep members informed of my Pip appeal as I have had some good advice from people. As some will have already seen I have posted dates of when I won my appeal the date I received the notice and also dates of when it was sent back to the judge due to an error. Well rang them again today 27/07/2020 to see if any progress and was told its still with the judge. The guy I spoke to said it normally takes 2 to 3weeks for the judge to rectify an error.. Obviously not true as the judge has already had it 3weeks. He then said hopefully by the end of this week. Won't hold my breath. Its beggining to look like the whole process is goin to take 2years as am only 3 months away from that. 

mikehughescq

Hmm. Some bloke said this previously on your other thread on this.

As stated previously then they can’t tell you anything other than whether it’s been sent out or it’s come back. Corrections are bottom of the list at present as the few clerks going into HMCTS offices are focused on running phone hearings and typing up decisions. When you apply for a correction the original bundle has to be located and sent out to the judge with your request. That can also take time both with HMCTS and Royal Mail. It’s often the case that the judge gets sent your request but the bundle follows later. Again a delay. Then you have the thorny matter of whether the judge is salaried (FT) or fee paid (PT). 

Salaried judges are running all the triage i.e. where they preview cases and decide if they can award on the papers. They’re running most of the phone hearings for 4 days pw as well as dealing with interlocutory decision and writing their own statements of reasons. They tend to work into the evenings and corrections as I say are near the bottom of the list when it comes to priorities. They are also often office based so little is posted out to them. They’d just pick stuff up in the office and work on it like a regular office worker. 

Fee paid judges don’t get paid for prepping cases and have only recently started to get paid for statements. They are part time and may hold down other employment which has to fit in around their judge work. Again a correction won’t be top of the list as they don’t get paid for it. Imagine a week in which they work 2 days at a legal firm and have 1 days worth of appeals to hear. That 1 day will take a day of prep and if they have just 1 statement to do that’s the other working day accounted for as a state to takes a day at least to craft. Your correction will be their evening or weekend work.

When you first rang up you were told the judge had the request. What they really meant is that they’d sent it out. They’d have no clue if it arrived or not. They couldn’t possibly check in with each judge either. A few weeks later you now check in again and they again said it’s with the judge. Again that just means “we definitely posted it out”. You then get quoted 2 to 3 weeks which is frankly just random. Any correction done inside 3 months is an excellent result. 

If you insist on ringing them again ask them something specific:

1 - fee paid or salaried judge - only the former have stuff posted out to them on the whole. I doubt the call centre will know this but it’s worth a punt.

2 - if it was posted then what exact date is shown as the date of postage?

3 - when has it been diarised to follow up with the judge? It’s usually 6 weeks followed by every fortnight after that. In lockdown it may be even slower. 

CT1

Hi Mike. Yes the previous guy was from the dwp and he told me something totally different from what the guy from HMCTS told me yesterday. My point is we have to go to a tribunal to get what we are entitled to for them to make such a silly error of one number and then if you are correct wait another 3months after already goin through it all for 21months to get what is owing and what we are due. I haven't been through this before so I don't know what specific questions to ask but I will make sure I ask them what u have told me so thanks again. 

mikehughescq

Ask them the 3 specific questions I suggested above. That should suffice.

I hear what you're saying about the delays. A 24 month delay is wholly unacceptable but unfortunately errors do happen no amount of money thrown at the process will prevent that. General principles of stats suggest that the longer something goes on the more likely you are to be on the wrong end of errors which compound each other and of course it then feels very personal when of course the exact opposite is going on. It's very much very impersonal and I do wonder if some of the strategic people within DWP and HMCTS had someone lead them through the experience beginning to end bits might look very different.