ESA Appeal Procedure

epitome

You can send in a briefly worded (but not too brief otherwise it won't be accepted as an appeal) GL24 to get your payments reinstated.

They should send you a letter confirming receipt of the appeal and asking if there is any further evidence you wish to submit in support of the appeal. Telling you to send it within 14days before they start looking at your appeal. In reality they won't look at your appeal for many more weeks than that. Whether you actually get this letter is a different matter.

You do not need to re-submit any sicknotes from the date of this decision, your existing sicknote will still be valid and you can ask them when it will expire, *after the expiry date* you will need a new sicknote.

You can send in your extra evidence(s) at anytime to the same address you send your sicknotes to - (your ESA BC) If they are received before they look at your appeal, they will go into your file until the appeal is looked at. If they are received after your appeal has been looked at, the extra evidence will be breifly looked at before being forwarded to the tribunal service...(but you should not rely on this getting to the tribunal and should send a duplicate of your post decision evidence to the tribunal yourself.)

When you send anything by post (sicknotes, GL24, evidence etc) you should always check after 7 - 8 days that it was received.

The recon stage goes to a different decision maker and can be overturned, if it is not overturned it is automatically forwarded to the tribunals service for the appeal stage. The tribunal will write you a letter asking if you want to continue with your appeal, if you fail to reply the tribunal closes the file.

The tribunal will consist of a judge and a doctor and.. I think.. a 3rd person.

Each stage can take 6 months.

You are ONLY appealing your condition as it was on the day of your assessment, any changes or deterioration after that date will be IRRELEVANT to the appeal. Any changes or deterioration should be notified to the ESA BC with a request for re-assessment if you think it is needed.

If you want a cheaper phonecall look up "DWP" or "Job Centre Plus" on saynoto0870 and use the one ending in 6654

KxMx

epitome wrote: »

You can send in a breifly worded (but not too breif otherwise it won't be accepted as an appeal) GL24 to get your payments reinstated.

They should send you a letter confirming receipt of the appeal and asking if there is any further evidence you wish to submit in support of the appeal. Telling you to send it within 14days before they start looking at your appeal. In reality they won't look at your appeal for many more weeks than that. Whether you actually get this letter is a different matter.

You do not need to re-submit any sicknotes from the date of this decision, your existing sicknote will still be valid and you can ask them when it will expire, *after the expiry date* you will need a new sicknote.

You can send in your extra evidence(s) at anytime to the same address you send your sicknotes to - (your ESA BC) If they are received before they look at your appeal they will go into your file until the appeal is loked at. if they are received after they appeal has been looked at the extra evidence will be breifly looked at before being forwarded to the tribunal service...(but you should not rely on this getting to the tribunal and should send a duplicate of your post decision evidence to the tribunal yourself.)

When you send anything by post (sicknotes, GL24, evidence etc) you should always check after 7 - 8 days that it was received.

The recon stage goes to a different decision maker and can be overturned, if it is not overturned it is automatically forwarded to the tribunals service for the appeal stage. The tribunal will write you a letter asking if you want to continue with your appeal, if you fail to reply the tribunal closes the file.

The tribunal will consist of a judge and a doctor and.. I think.. a 3rd person.

Each stage can take 6 months.


You are ONLY appealing your condition as it was on the day of your assessment, any changes or deterioration after that date will be IRRELEVANT to the appeal. Any changes or deterioration should be notified to the ESA BC with a request for re-assessment if you think it is needed.

Not sure this is the case for everyone, my notice of ESA failure came from Glasgow (far far away from my local BDC!) and that letter instructed me to send the appeal to them so not local BDC. I sent in my sick note with appeal. I have yet to enquire where subsequent sick notes go.

epitome

KxMx wrote: »

Not sure this is the case for everyone, my notice of ESA failure came from Glasgow (far far away from my local BDC!) and that letter instructed me to send the appeal to them so not local BDC. I sent in my sick note with appeal. I have yet to enquire where subsequent sick notes go.

I knew as I wrote it that there is one complication, when you fail the IB migration from IB or IS you send your appeal and first sicknote to the IBR BDC, after payments start you send continuing sicknotes to your ESA BDC. After payments start you would send further appeal evidence to your ESA BDC address which is why I said "your ESA BC" However, if it was sent to your IBR BC theoretically it should not be a problem.

I didn't use the words "local BDC" BDCs are rarely local to a claimants address.

KxMx

I did fail the IB to ESA migration yes. It's very confusing for sure, however I live in the East of England, quite far from Glasgow, the office I usually deal with is the nearest Benefits Delivery Centre (again in East of England around 27 miles from my address), not the small Job Centre Plus in the town where I live. Not much to do with Glasgow anyway as far as I know (surely there is a BDC which deals with ESA in England a bit nearer than Glasgow at 400+ miles!), that is where my decision letter came from and where I sent the appeal and first sick note as instructed.
When I phone to confirm my appeal is being processed I will ask where I send subsequent sick notes. I already submitted all my evidence with the appeal (I got a copy of the ESA85 and knew which way it would go, they took 3 months to tell me so I had time to prepare).

strangeotron

epitome wrote: »

You are ONLY appealing your condition as it was on the day of your assessment, any changes or deterioration after that date will be IRRELEVANT to the appeal. Any changes or deterioration should be notified to the ESA BC with a request for re-assessment if you think it is needed.

If you want a cheaper phonecall look up "DWP" or "Job Centre Plus" on saynoto0870 and use the one ending in 6654

I was fine on the day of the assessment!

i have (IMO) an undiagnosed neuro diverse (to quote the Work Psychologist i saw last year) condition. As with a lot of mental health conditions one day can be different from another, as can one situation from another.

I expected little from the interview, I knew I would fail. People with terminal cancer are found fit, so I knew I had no chance relating my issues.

This is supposed to be Employment Support Allowance, not Incapacity Benefit (otherwise what's the point of creating a different benefit?). I'm trying to get into the WRAG, not the support group because I think this is the best route foward. I can't cope with JSA/JC+ (some of the advisers were ok, some were not). I'm on the WOrk Programme and while I was on JSA I was bullied by an ignorant adviser who ignored any and all health issues. I complained and was told, after changing my adviser, that I should be on ESA and that if I was they'd be able to help me a lot more (not that they have, but that's another story - they complain they get no support/money from the prime provider but that's the WP for you).

Frankly this whole situation with ESA is a dire mess. I'm sure my case is one of the much more benign compared to some.

epitome

Then on the day of your assessment you had a condition which was worse some days than it was other days, and you would be saying on your appeal the reasons why you think this condition means you can't work.

If your condition worsens after the assessment then it will be irrlevant to the appeal, i..e you may worsen such that your condition affects you badly everyday.

strangeotron

I didn't say it means I can't work at all. That's why I'm trying to get into the WRAG.

It's called Employment Support, not Incapacity Benefit and it should operate correctly. This is just getting ridiculous. If someone feels fine on the day of their assessment then they are even more screwed than normal.

Torry_Quine

strangeotron wrote: »

I didn't say it means I can't work at all. That's why I'm trying to get into the WRAG.

It's called Employment Support, not Incapacity Benefit and it should operate correctly. This is just getting ridiculous. If someone feels fine on the day of their assessment then they are even more screwed than normal.

I agree here, it's definitely more difficult if you have a variable illness.

epitome

Ok, if you want to be pedantic, I'll correct that,

Then on the day of your assessment you had a condition which was worse some days than it was other days, and you would be saying on your appeal the reasons why you think this qualifies you for ESA.

If your condition worsens after the assessment then it will be irrelevant to the appeal, i..e you may worsen such that your condition affects you badly everyday.

I am only trying to help you, it would have been nice if you had said thank you for the comprehensive answer I gave you in post #12 which corrected earlier replies that you had here.