DWP Gives In On ESA Backpayments
With many thanks to Benefits And Work.
The DWP has finally surrendered and agreed to repay ESA claimants all the money that was unlawfully withheld from them, it was announced yesterday. The u-turn follows the publication of a highly critical report by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
In March of this year we reported that the DWP failed to award income-related ESA to around 70,000 claimants who were transferred from incapacity benefit to contribution-based ESA from 2011 onwards.
Affected claimants are owed between £2,500 and £20,000 each.
However, the DWP had insisted that they were only legally obliged to repay underpayments from 21 October 2014, when the upper tribunal first ruled that contribution-based and income-based ESA are a single benefit and that the DWP has a duty to assess claimants for eligibility to both types of ESA when a claim is made.
This meant that underpayments from before this date all the way back to 2011 were simply being ignored by the DWP.
The PAC report, published yesterday, accused the DWP of multiple failures:
“It failed to design a process that reflected its own legislation. It failed to subject that process to proper scrutiny. It failed to listen to its own staff, claimants, or external stakeholders and experts who told it things were going wrong and that it needed to slow down. And it failed to act even when it was painfully obvious that it was underpaying a significant number of people, taking over six years to take the necessary corrective action.”
Committee Chair, Meg Hillier MP, commented:
“Indifference has no place in the delivery of vital public services. It must be rooted out wherever it is found.
“The Department needs to explain what it is doing to improve both its management culture and its ability to gather and act promptly on critical intelligence.
“It must also set out how it will more quickly address the £1.7 billion of underpayments claimants miss out on each year.
“Half-hearted Whitehall targets offer no comfort to people struggling to make ends meet because of Government mistakes.”
Within hours of the report being published, Esther McVey, secretary of state for work and pensions, made a statement saying that the DWP would be backdating ESA payments all the way to 2011. Claimants who have already received their backdating will have their case reviewed again to see if they are entitled to any more money.
Child Poverty Action Group, which had launched a legal challenge to the DWP’s original decision to limit backdating, welcomed the u-turn.
However, the DWP is still refusing to pay compensation for consequential losses, such as loss of free prescriptions, free dental care and free school meals.
Same Difference 
Good news on the face of it, but no doubt DWP will drag their feet on timing; when can people expect backdated payment to be made?
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& i bet they won’t contact the people that they messed up with either – you’ll probably have to claim it yourself! They totally screwed me up by taking me off Incapacity & then not giving me ESA – no reasonable warning, no transition period. Sent me on a right downward cycle – unforgivable!
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Reblogged this on michaelsnaith.
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“that was unlawfully withheld”
“the DWP is still refusing to pay compensation for consequential losses”
Fraud Act **2006** –
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/35/contents
Fraud by abuse of position –
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/35/section/4
Fraud by failing to disclose information –
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/35/section/3
Fraud by false representation –
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/35/section/2
—
Misconduct in Public Office –
http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/l_to_o/misconduct_in_public_office/
—
So Where are the Police??
Perverting The Course of Justice –
http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/public_justice_offences_incorporating_the_charging_standard/
Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 –
Corrupt or other improper exercise of police powers and privileges –
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/2/section/26/enacted
Serious Crime Act 2007 – Part 2 – Encouraging or Assisting Crime –
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2007/27/part/2
Accessories and Abettors Act 1861 –
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/24-25/94/crossheading/as-to-abettors-in-misdemeanors
Criminal Justice Act 2003 (section 146) – Disability Hate Crime –
Increase in sentences for aggravation related to disability or sexual orientation –
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/44/section/146
—
Abuse of Vulnerable Adults –
Click to access No_secrets__guidance_on_developing_and_implementing_multi-agency_policies_and_procedures_to_protect_vulnerable_adults_from_abuse.pdf
Care Act 2014 – Safeguarding adults at risk of abuse or neglect –
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2014/23/section/42/enacted
Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 –
Ill-treatment or wilful neglect: care worker offence –
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/2/section/20/enacted
Ill-treatment or wilful neglect: care provider offence –
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/2/section/21/enacted
—
UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – Articles
https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities-2.html
UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CAT.aspx
Criminal Justice Act 1988 – Torture
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/33/part/XI/crossheading/torture
—
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I think it prudent that we believe this news as and when these payments are confirmed and more to the point actually being paid out with some sort of evidence
most of all of government policy over the past few years has just been talk
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What will hapen to people, like me who reached state retirment age and ESA cessed. Will they contact or will it just be no current claim no blame.
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There’s no ‘Statute of Limitations’ in this country.
The Fraud Act has been law for all of this time –
Fraud Act 2006 – (up to 10 years in Prison)
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/35/contents
And, common law – Misconduct in Public Office, always has been –
Misconduct in Public Office – (up to Life in Prison)
http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/l_to_o/misconduct_in_public_office/
You can report the Vulnerable Adult Abusing Hate Criminal Fraudsters now… or when you are *able*… or when you finally find an honest cop… or in thirty years time (like their 1970s paedophile mates).
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