Tribunal Triage Decision

Username_removed said:

The 28 days to object runs from the 24th of April so roughly the 22nd of May. It’s rightly vague on how soon after as it’s plainly ridiculous to pin that down to a time-scale even if we weren’t in the middle of a pandemic lock down. 

At present you might have a HMCTS office with 10 people in it instead of the usual 200.  Clerks are generally going in only to run telephone hearings and whatever admin work can be done is being done around that. The process is as follows as best I recall.

Somewhere there’s a note on a system to say when the 28 days is up. Ordinarily that flags up and a clerk would then bring that to the attention if a salaried judge who would then finalise the decision whereupon a clerk distributes that to all parties and the DWP payment process can grind into action. 

Imagine what that looks like at present. 

• Few clerks in the office.
• Massive backlogs on every front.
• Documents having to be transmitted to judges who are likeky working remotely and who you can’t assume have broadband or IT skills (the reason clerks still exist in the first place). You don’t even know if they’ve got a printer or access to envelopes and stamps. 
• Maybe having to transmit stuff back to HMCTS for a clerk to print and post. Back to massive backlogs.
• Into the post and... backlogs.

Your question is the social security equivalent of “how long is a piece of string” and it’s absolutely right that there is no answer to how long it will take.