Phone call from PIP appeal writer

Hello,

I'm an appointee for my son and, with help from your guides and several of the moderators, I recently began an appeal on the decision on his recent PIP review online. The appeal was received and acknowledged by HMCTS on 29th January and they said the DWP has until 3rd March to respond. I expected that the next step would be to get a bundle of papers in the post, at which point I could look at the evidence they had used to reduce my son's award and decide whether or not to proceed with the appeal. However, this afternoon, I received a telephone call from someone who said he was a "PIP appeal writer" and he made an appointment to phone again tomorrow morning to ask me some questions. It would have been more convenient for me to have spoken to him there and then, and I said so, but he said he couldn't do that, as he had not yet looked at the appeal papers and "there are 60 documents". I presume these are documents the DWP has amassed over the years - the ones I want to see - as I only sent an appeal submission and one page of extra evidence. How does he know he needs to speak to me if he hasn't yet read the documentation? Why does he need to speak to me? I didn't expect to have to answer any further questions until I had seen what evidence the DWP already has for their decision and I don't see why I should be expected to contribute any more evidence to the DWP's appeal submission, especially if they already have such a lot. Is he just trying to intimidate me? (If so, he's succeeded.) Can I refuse to talk to him when/if he calls tomorrow? Has this happened to anybody else?

I would be grateful for any advice please.

Kind regards,

Wendy Woo

Hi Wendy Woo,

I too got a call from the DWP after submitting my appeal request. Like yourself I was also expecting to receive the bundle of papers so I could review them - I hadn't even received a copy of the medical report as requested many times, so I had no idea what to challenge in the appeal , but I still filed it as I believe their decision and the reasoning given was wrong. Anyway, before I received the DWP's evidence I got a call from them out of the blue and the only question I got asked was had I yet received a referral to the endometriosis clinic I'd mentioned in my application. I answered no - I still haven't, but that's another issue and irrelevant to my claim in all honesty as my condition is incurable. That is all the DWP wanted to know, but when I received my bundle, the DWP decided to add a document in it called 'FACTS' and this listed details of the phone conversation I'd had with them, but only from their perspective. It said I refused to answer their questions initially - yes this is true but they failed to explain why I said this - and generally made me out to be 'difficult'.

I've no idea why they have included this document in their bundle as it is not especially helpful and doesn't prove anything and is very far from FACTS as it is one sided and neglects to mention I asked where they had got false medical information from (they have clearly made this up) and I said they still hadn't sent me the medical report despite being asked to 3x times in writing and another 2x on the phone and therefore I didn't trust them to speak to them any longer.

I guess they just want to try and intimidate me, but it's not worked.

On another note my Tribunal is this Friday coming (!) so I hope to have a resolution to this saga soon. I will mention this FACTS document at the hearing and say if the DWP want to rely on a phone conversation, they should supply a transcript and recording of the conversation, and not just their one-sided opinion of what was said.

Hope this helps you in some way. I would just do as advised and see what they have to say and if you're comfortable in answering, then answer. If not, I guess you can always say you need to discuss with your son or someone else before getting back to them? Good luck and don't let them intimidate you

Thank you, BIS, for your wise words and I'm so glad I followed your advice. After about twenty minutes of pretty intense questioning, the gentleman surprised me by offering to reinstate my son's award to its previous level! I agreed because I wasn't expecting any more than that and it is still quite a long award (five years). I'm very relieved not to have to go to a tribunal after all and hope we can now settle down for a while, as this should give us all, as a family, some breathing space to investigate what help might be available for him in the future.

I think a lot of people would agree that, for someone with lifelong problems, it's not just about the money (though, of course, that is helpful), it is also important to have the extent of their difficulties "officially" recognised.

Thank you once again for your advice.

Wendy

Hello MDBond,

Thank you for your response and for taking an interest - it's sometimes quite hard to fathom the mysteries of the way the DWP works! I'm glad my son's case now seems to have sorted itself out (please see my reply to BIS), but now, of course, I won't receive the bundle of papers and, in a way, I was hoping to see if they had any evidence other than the assessor's reports and the documents I'd sent them.

My son's review has taken exactly 18 months from its start up until this point and, unlike so many other people who report long delays, I have to say every communication arrived well within the timeframe they were supposed to meet - sometimes I was hoping they'd be a little late in order to give me more time to prepare!

I wish you the best of luck for your own tribunal.

Wendy