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Really fed up with DWP
Annabelle26
Member Posts: 102 Pioneering
I rang the DWP this morning to see what is happening regarding my ESA & the Mandatory Review. Eventually the Decision Maker rang back. She was a really awful jobsworth. The decision was made yesterday not to accept the MR. According to her their was a pattern of avoidance because I missed 4 appointments last year. Apparently I should have provided evidence but no one told me at the time. Also apparently I should have received a form about home visits when they accepted my last MR but I have never received such a form. I told her that but she said they were sent out automatically. She told me I can appeal but I have to wait for the decision letter. I told her I was already doing that with PIP. She sounded quite gleeful & she really upset me. She made me cry & have an anxiety attack. She also told me if I want money I have to apply for JSA. This I have done online. I rang the benefit line about an advance payment but they cannot look to see if they can do that until they get the application which may take hours. I may have to wait until Monday. At present I do not have enough money to meet all my beginning of the month bills.
I am still waiting to for a Tribunal date for my PIP several weeks on.
I am now really tired & have a headache so I am going to take a couple of tablets & lay down.
I am still waiting to for a Tribunal date for my PIP several weeks on.
I am now really tired & have a headache so I am going to take a couple of tablets & lay down.
Replies
Or they have taken you out of the support group.
I don't see how they can just stop it, unless as they are saying you haven't been attending appointments and then they can sanction.
The support group who are unfit for work and are not expected to do anything to improve their chances of getting any.
Then the WRAG group who are also unfit for work but do have to improve their chances.
Surely unfit is unfit?
*If* the people in the WRAG group were *really* unfit but moving toward fit-to-work (many of them should be in the Support Group, and won't be able to work in the near future, if ever); and
*if* the work-related activity provided by the DWP and its contractors was at all helpful (many of the courses are complete dross, apparently); and
*if* the JC helped these people to find appropriate jobs when they were ready;
then the WRAG would be a great idea. If. As it is, it's a waste of time, money, stress, etc.
However around xmas time their ESA stopped and apparently it went to tribuneral without success.
Since then that person has now had a miraculous recovery and thrown the crutch away and now working part time
so miracles do happen
I thought they were simplifying the system!
I really think if a job at NASA came up I could get that hands down over understanding the different benefits out there. By that I mean all their rules because UC has different rules to ESA.
i) The "Decision Maker" is most likely a low paid junior Civil Servant working under extreme pressure from dim witted management
ii) That is not a career of choice for anyone who is actually otherwise employable in the real world. Their management is terrible.
iii) The massively complex system is actually run by juniors who really don't understand and worst of all having to work off the outputs of don't give a damn and often unqualified, outsourced staff working under a contract for a company not properly supervised by the DWP at all.
iv) Mandatory Reconsideartions by the DWP carry an 85% rejection rate, They are near automatic rejections and an evil farce.
v) DWP as a whole is proven by the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee to be unfit for purpose.
Don't get upset but angry. Get input from CAB and others prepared to help. Push forward with Appeals and do it properly. The First Tier Tribunal is not to be feared in the slightest: it is your only salvation.
Unlike the self serving idiots who are currently locking you into a world of misery for their own convenience the panels are intelligent, experienced legal and medical professionals who are capable of rational thought and fully understand both the system and the grotesque administrative failings.
In short and totally disgracefuly, the FTT has all too often become the first opportunity for proper reasoned decision making.
Some of their MPs really don't believe that it can be "that" bad, but some of them know very well what's happening, and they do nothing to stop it. Be angry - be enraged! This is a less obvious version of Aktion T4. It isn't personal, and they don't have it in for you in particular, but in some ways that's worse: we're even worth notice as individuals. Fight them. Don't let them do this to you.