UC Claim closed without notification as I hadn’t accepted commitments?

TheShape

HillStreetBlues said:

TheShape said:

I'm not sure that I agree that was the interpretation of the tribunal ruling.

When you are sure it would be helpful to share your viewpoint,  as if someone disagrees always better to find out why.

TheShape said:

HillStreetBlues said:

If the new CC states the need to do something and you don't accept the CC so don't do what's required, then a sanction can be put in place for what you haven't done not the closing of the claim.

If you do not do something on the CC in place/accepted at the time, this could result in a referral to a decision maker and a posible sanction.  Not accepting a CC is not a sanctionable failure as a failure to accept a CC is dealt with by considering claim closure.

Did you mean to echo my posts in your reply about not doing something on a CC could lead to a sanction?

††††††††††††

I did mean to echo that but only in the context of an accepted CC.

HillStreetBlues

TheShape said:

I did mean to echo that but only in the context of an accepted CC.

It sounds like we agree on 2 points, that not accepting a new CC isn't a sanction, not doing something on a CC (either old or new) could be a sanction.
AIUI any possible disagreement is that not accepting a new CC could lead to the UC closing (I believe it shouldn't)

Yamor

The case law quoted above is slightly misleading, not least because (I believe) the Judge was probably mislead as to the facts of that particular case.

I accept that almost definitely that case involved an auto-generated claimant commitment, and which wasn't accepted by the claimant. However, the Judge seems to have understood from the DWP representative that it was a case of tailored commitments which were due to be set after attending an interview.
See also para. 15 of the judgement (not the para. 15 of the DWP's submission quoted just beforehand) which refers to "where claimant commitments were due to be reviewed".

As such that case law only applies in cases where an interview has been arranged to set a new claimant commitment, but the claimant doesn't attend the interview. The logic being that at that stage the previous claimant commitment was still in place.

DWP also interpret it this way - see the ADM at J1034 Note 1, which uses an extremely similar wording as the submission made by the DWP in that case, and that part of the ADM is very clearly talking about cases where the new claimant commitment is to be set after an interview arranged for the purpose of updating the claimant commitment.
(See also para. J1032 which also explains the logic as above, that the previous claimant commitment is still in place.)

In actual fact, that section of the ADM was inserted over a year before the UT decision you've referred to. It wasn't only inserted after the UT decision was made (and as a result of the UT decision).
It would therefore appear likely that the DWP representative took this section of her submission from the guidance, but didn't realise that in the case under appeal it was most likely an auto-generated claimant commitment, and therefore this section of the guidance wasn't actually relevant.

Edit to add:
One point I tell people to look out for, where they have had their claim terminated due to not accepting an auto-generated claimant commitment, is whether in fact the claimant commitment has in fact changed. In my experience, many updated auto-generated claimant commitments are actually identical to the previously accepted claimant commitment. If that has happened then I can't see the claimant losing their appeal.

SpikeyKitten

So, after speaking to a lady on the phone about this, she put in a 'mandatory reconsideration' with my points raised. In my journal it was updated that an agent WILL respond by a certain time and date, which has now passed. Is this something to worry about? If the wording was something like 'Will aim to respond by' I wouldn't be querying it. I'm just worried that they may have tried to contact me via flag semaphore at 02:48am and I've missed it.

huckster

Just a rough idea about when they might contact you. UC Service Centres are extremely busy due to all of the claim migration work, so I expect it will be with a couple of days from their target date.

SpikeyKitten

huckster said:

Just a rough idea about when they might contact you. UC Service Centres are extremely busy due to all of the claim migration work, so I expect it will be with a couple of days from their target date.

Thank you.

That's fine, I'm a reasonable person. It was just the way they worded it, made me worried I'd missed them. You'd think they'd cut themselves some slack if they're busy and say "we'll try to get back to you within a few days" rather than "we WILL get back to you by 4pm tomorrow". But tI suppose they don't have to explain anything.