Jeffs posts
starve them out the tory way
It’s great that the percentage rate of successful appeals against refusal of Personal Independence Payment is at its highest ever.
But that number hides the fact that only eight per cent of those who have been refused the benefit appeal.
This is because the Conservative government does not want to pay the benefit to anybody at all. Even payments to those who most clearly qualify are only granted because the recipients are likely to die in the near future.
So they learned from their experience with appeals against bad ESA decisions, and introduced a delaying tactic called Mandatory Reconsideration.
Those who are refused the benefit must go through the MR process before they may appeal to a tribunal – and they are paid nothing during the time they spend waiting for MR.
Simply put, the Tories starve them out.
That is the reason, as the DWP spokesperson states at the end of the Mirror article quoted below, only “eight per cent have been appealed and four per cent have been overturned”.
In addition, there is no support available for claimants who want to appeal.
Here‘s SPeye Joe:
“WHY do only 8 in every 100 cases appeal? Because there is scant support for them to appeal with (a) no legal aid to pay for this; (b) because an appeal is a lengthy time-consuming process and linked with that (c) appeals are NOT routinely undertaken by welfare rights agencies such as the CAB.”
So when you read the following, remember it’s only part of the story – a story the DWP and the Conservative government don’t want you to understand.
The victory rate for people appealing for disability benefit has reached its highest ever.
Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessments have been branded a “total failure” as 69% of people appealing them at a tribunal now win their case.
That is the highest percentage success rate ever recorded since the benefit launched in 2013.
Today’s figures show that between October and December 2017, 20,144 benefit tribunals were completed – and 13,881 ended in victory for the claimant.
Separately 69% of appeals for sickness benefit Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) also ended in victory in the three-month period, just short of a record.
Campaigners argue assessments for the new benefit are unfit for purpose.
Of 947,000 people moving from DLA to PIP, almost half (46%) had their payments downgraded or stopped.
Posted by jeffrey davies on 10 March 2018
