confusing esa letter...

deathvalleydemon

hello all..

I had a letter this morning from ESA peeps and its confused me, ive rang them and its even confused the woman on the phone...

it says on the letter....

YOU HAVE MADE AN APPEAL AGAINST AN ESA DECISION.

we have looked again all all the evidence and facts and have changed our decision.


we will deduct £7.10 a week from your esa... it cant be that ive appealed them taking this £7.10 from my esa, I only had the letter saying they were taking it yesterday and the original esa claim from my failed medical is the ONLY appeal that ive made with the DWP


does it mean that i have won my appeal and they have reversed the decision in my favour?

the woman on the phone said thats what it sounds like and i will be getting a call from the processing centre within the next 3 hours to discuss what happens next....

anyone that can shed any light on this?

thanks in advance

cosmic-dust

They are going to be deducting £7.10 from your ESA? Doesn't sound like winning an appeal to me, generally when you win an appeal they give you more money not deduct money from you.

Have you taken out any social fund loans?

deathvalleydemon wrote: »

hello all..

I had a letter this morning from ESA peeps and its confused me, ive rang them and its even confused the woman on the phone...

it says on the letter....

YOU HAVE MADE AN APPEAL AGAINST AN ESA DECISION.

we have looked again all all the evidence and facts and have changed our decision.


we will deduct £7.10 a week from your esa... it cant be that ive appealed them taking this £7.10 from my esa, I only had the letter saying they were taking it yesterday and the original esa claim from my failed medical is the ONLY appeal that ive made with the DWP


does it mean that i have won my appeal and they have reversed the decision in my favour?

the woman on the phone said thats what it sounds like and i will be getting a call from the processing centre within the next 3 hours to discuss what happens next....

anyone that can shed any light on this?

thanks in advance

deathvalleydemon

cosmic-dust wrote: »

They are going to be deducting £7.10 from your ESA? Doesn't sound like winning an appeal to me, generally when you win an appeal they give you more money not deduct money from you.

Have you taken out any social fund loans?

it states on the letter that they have looked at all the evidence and have changed their decision.

yes i did have a social fund loan, quite a while ago now... but i already had a seperate letter about that yesterday saying they are going to be taking the £7.10 from my esa.

the letter i got today says exactly this...

We have looked again at the facts and evidence we used to make our decision. As a result we have changed the decision, we have also been asked to deduct £7.10 from your esa.


the only decision they can have changed is my esa appeal as ive not got another appeal going.

the woman on the phone said she believes they have changed their decision on my esa and the processing centre will be calling me today to tell me what is going to happen next.

Muttleythefrog

Hmmm... administration of ESA and their associated letters could send NASA to Australia looking for little green men at the best of times...lol... a good knowledge of cryptic coptic can help

What we do know is you've appealed against a WCA decision to deny you main phase ESA.
Before sending off papers to the tribunals service so that the tribunals service can arrange your appeal hearing, the DWP will automatically reconsider their decision to see if they can change it... and any additional evidence available to take that decision they will use... including the details you gave for why you are appealing. If they do reach a different decision they'll halt the process and let you know the new decision (which you could appeal against if you were to disagree with it). It sounds to me like they may have reconsidered and decided to pass you on the WCA... one would presume they'll be informing you that they have assigned you to WRAG (less likely they awarded Support Gp.. although possible). My only concern regarding this advice is that they failed to give the actual new decision in their letter (an outsider would assume this to be the obvious content if applicable).... but then in context that isn't unusual since many ESA letters seem inappropriate and insufficient as standard to make any meaningful communications with claimants... probably why one of the big problems is often key letters don't get sent at all.

The £7.10 matter is probably a distraction from the key event here and was probably a matter being addressed regardless of what I think is a successful automatic reconsideration on entitlement to ESA.

So in answer to your question I would take a punt that the woman you spoke to on the phone is correct. It sounds like you might be saved the need to go through with an appeal. (The DWP appears to be under some pressure to take reconsiderations with more vigour to prevent the current huge numbers of appeals (many successful) regarding ESA.)

Let us know what they say when they contact you again.

deathvalleydemon

Muttleythefrog wrote: »

Hmmm... administration of ESA and their associated letters could send NASA to Australia looking for little green men at the best of times...lol... a good knowledge of cryptic coptic can help

What we do know is you've appealed against a WCA decision to deny you main phase ESA.
Before sending off papers to the tribunals service so that the tribunals service can arrange your appeal hearing, the DWP will automatically reconsider their decision to see if they can change it... and any additional evidence available to take that decision they will use... including the details you gave for why you are appealing. If they do reach a different decision they'll halt the process and let you know the new decision (which you could appeal against if you were to disagree with it). It sounds to me like they may have reconsidered and decided to pass you on the WCA... one would presume they'll be informing you that they have assigned you to WRAG (less likely they awarded Support Gp.. although possible). My only concern regarding this advice is that they failed to give the actual new decision in their letter (an outsider would assume this to be the obvious content if applicable).... but then in context that isn't unusual since many ESA letters seem inappropriate and insufficient as standard to make any meaningful communications with claimants... probably why one of the big problems is often key letters don't get sent at all.

The £7.10 matter is probably a distraction from the key event here and was probably a matter being addressed regardless of what I think is a successful automatic reconsideration on entitlement to ESA.

So in answer to your question I would take a punt that the woman you spoke to on the phone is correct. It sounds like you might be saved the need to go through with an appeal. (The DWP appears to be under some pressure to take reconsiderations with more vigour to prevent the current huge numbers of appeals (many successful) regarding ESA.)

Let us know what they say when they contact you again.

they've finally just rang me back and the guy on the phone said that they have changed the decision in my favour and i wont need to go to tribunal. they said they will be contacting me again via letter or phone but if i havent heard from them by wednesday mornings post then to call them.


to say i'm relieved/overwhelmed by it all is an understatement.

Muttleythefrog

deathvalleydemon wrote: »

they've finally just rang me back and the guy on the phone said that they have changed the decision in my favour and i wont need to go to tribunal. they said they will be contacting me again via letter or phone but if i havent heard from them by wednesday mornings post then to call them.


to say i'm relieved/overwhelmed by it all is an understatement.

Ah that's great news. Probably they've put you in WRAG... and confirmation will come soon. Payments to your bank account might reveal outcome before their letter... so keep a watch for the increased payments...lol. (You probably will be due some backdated monies also.)

deathvalleydemon

Muttleythefrog wrote: »

Ah that's great news. Probably they've put you in WRAG... and confirmation will come soon. Payments to your bank account might reveal outcome before their letter... so keep a watch for the increased payments...lol. (You probably will be due some backdated monies also.)

the guy told me i will be... god knows how much it will be... its gonna be backdated to october last year....

any idea how long it normally takes?

Muttleythefrog

deathvalleydemon wrote: »

the guy told me i will be... god knows how much it will be... its gonna be backdated to october last year....

any idea how long it normally takes?

Might take them a while... hard to tell.. but I think I'd give them a couple of weeks to give you decision formally and sort monies out and then possibly contact them to push things along if no joy. There's no obvious reason for any holdups except beaurocracy.

deathvalleydemon

Muttleythefrog wrote: »

Might take them a while... hard to tell.. but I think I'd give them a couple of weeks to give you decision formally and sort monies out and then possibly contact them to push things along if no joy. There's no obvious reason for any holdups except beaurocracy.

until i see a letter with my own eyes telling me theyve changed their mind im gonna take what they said on the phone with a pinch of salt.

ive read here before that it takes them like 6 weeks to pay monies owed... ive tried working it out myself but i cant do it... all i know is that its been 48 weeks since i started my appeal.

Muttleythefrog

deathvalleydemon wrote: »

until i see a letter with my own eyes telling me theyve changed their mind im gonna take what they said on the phone with a pinch of salt.

ive read here before that it takes them like 6 weeks to pay monies owed... ive tried working it out myself but i cant do it... all i know is that its been 48 weeks since i started my appeal.

lol.. it will be hard to work out. Estimating is easy enough..lol... problem is we don't know for sure you're in WRAG or Support Gp... probably WRAG at a calculated guess. If so then the WRAG component about £26 multiplied by number of weeks. Remember number of weeks will be the number of weeks since week 14 of claim if it is a new claim... or from date of negative transfer decision if coming from another benefit. So if 48 weeks then let's say 50 x25... because calculators should be banned... at least 1200 I would say.

deathvalleydemon

also, now that i appear to have been awarded esa, how will this affect my dla claim given that i was denied dla on the strength of the original esa medical?

do i need to contact them or will it be automatic as ive read on here before?