There is much I have learned on this topic over the last couple of years, I’m writing this in the hope it will prove helpful to anyone starting out, as there is much I wish I could change now I have the benefit of hindsight. It makes for a depressing read but I implore anyone about to go through it to read this to prepare themselves for what is to come.
As I have mentioned in passing before, I have a condition that severely limits my life and so I am I the process of getting support from the state through their Universal Credit system. I held off of claiming for the first 3 years of my condition because my family was in a good enough position to support me and I’ve always believed we should only ever take what we really need, when we really need it. When things became more grim financially I finally admitted to myself that this was what I needed to do.
Now there are plenty of horror stories out there about bad actors within the system and I knew of these before I started, but I went in with a co-operative and trusting attitude in the belief that these stories had to be the exceptional cases rather than the norm.
I filled in my application form, and took photos of each page in case it got lost in the mail (this turned out to be vitally important later). Then the time came for my Work Capability Assessment (WCA).
While I was there I thought things were going well, I was heavily medicated in order to make the travel bearable and had my mother with me to help me with the memory and focus issues that come with that sort of thing. The nurse conducting the interview claimed to be helping me stay focused by pushing for quick, context less answers while I was trying to put some detail into things that are particularly difficult to quantify in a condition like mine. At the time I believed her motives to be pure and helpful, and thought nothing of it until the results came a few weeks later.
The results were shocking, to say the least. I was awarded a total of 6 points, out of the required 15, and a disturbingly large amount of the report was extremely wrong. Incorrect answers, twisted meaning behind others, easily manipulated thanks to those contextless responses they pushed for, some flat out fabricated observations of my condition and overall wellness.
I managed to provide them with medical documents, including one from a specialist team dedicated to conditions such as mine who had worked on my case for over a year, the nurse declined my offer to take them for the ‘Decision Maker’ to read. Later down the line I would be told that I had ‘failed to provide sufficient evidence’ of my condition that could overrule the assessment of the nurse, making no mention of the fact I provided it there and then, but was refused by the assessor.
The next stage is to request a full written explanation, which I did. As we found out, there is very little to compel the DMs to respond with any sense of urgency, I only received the explaination 29 days after requesting it, which also turns out to be just before the deadline imposed on the claimant (me) for submitting a reconsideration request based off what I thought was wrong with that explaination.
In the end I was left with 12 hours to compile a coherent counter argument to the entire ruling. With the help of family we managed to produce about 12 pages of things wrong with the assessment, I can attest that since then I have found plenty more that could have gone with it.
In the end it really didn’t matter though, the DM closed ranks with the first and their entire reply essentially boiled down to covering for their colleague and trying to crush any hopes I had of qualifying, including several statements that were the absolute opposite of what the rules actually state, clearly in the assumption that I didn’t have access to them, which at the time I didn’t. It was only until the CAB took up my case that we found out the full extent of the misinformation these DWP agents had fed us.
Additionally they omitted 8 pages of what I had submitted, not just from their judgement and replies, but it was also missing from their submission to the court of tribunals when they were required to hand over all of the casework, but I’ll get to all of that in a moment…
When I brought my case to the Citizens Advice Bureau, they were both astounded and at the same time sadly unsurprised by how things had gone so far, that such a mix of emotions can even exist is testement to the insanity of this process. Astounded that a medical professional could possibly have chosen to take advantage of a medicated, pain wracked, vulnerable young man for the sake of their numbers, but sadly unsurprised all the same because of just how regularly they see it happen these days.
After learning the basics of the case, they carried out their own assessment using the exact same rulebook as the DWP DMs are using, not only did I meet the 15 points required, I scored them on the first question alone. By the time we were done I had well over 100, easily qualifying for the highest threshold.
The only real difference between the expertise of the CAB (who do these tests just as often as the agents for sadly all the reasons you might expect) and the DMs is that the CAB have no bias or personal motive to score me high or low (if anything those who don’t qualify would be less of a strain on their stretched resources), while the DMs do have margins to stick to, quotas to achieve in order to stay of value to the government. This will come as a suprise to no-one who has ever seen the DWP in the headlines.
It was during that point that we discovered the deception, when we finally had a chance to read the scoring rules in their precise definitions, we came to realise just how directly we had been lied to during this process. And I don’t mean a twisted truth, a lie by omission or anything like that, though there were plenty of those too, no I mean a complete opposite of what the rules state.
As an example, we were told that ‘It doesn’t matter if the task causes pain, all that matters is if the movement is possible.’ in one of their responses. While the scoring rule explicitly states ‘if the task causes significant discomfort or pain, they should be marked as unable to accomplish it’ (words to that effect, I obviously do not have a copy at home with me).
It became clear reading these with the book in hand, that they had banked on us simply not knowing it wasn’t true, and giving up on my claim because it seemed hopeless that a condition who’s primary effect is extreme pain could qualify under such rules. Hardly the methods of a caring department here to help the disabled however they can..
After compiling a list of everything wrong with the DWP agents’ actions, including the lies, delays and manipulation alongside all of the things wrong with the actual assessment. The CAB submitted my case to the Courts and Tribunals Service. Now unfortunately, because the system was not designed to have every case reach this point, the waiting times for your day in court are extreme.
While we were waiting, we received a few direction notices from the court, not actually directed at us, but copies of their direction to the DWP for the sake of us knowing what was happening. From these we know that the DWP failed to provide the bundle of documents required by the court by the deadline and were warned to provide it within a week after that date, a deadline they again failed to reach.
We got a copy of this bundle when the DWP eventually managed to compile one, and were met with another startling revelation. They reported to have lost my UC50, the original written document I talked about submitting to start the case. Now, while I cannot prove this was intentional, it is worth baring in mind that this document would have backed up my claims about my answers being twisted/fabricated in the interview. So, we helpfully submitted those photos I took of each page off to the court.
By the end of all of this, with all the delays and waiting times, we got our day in court 18 months after starting the claim. 18 months of being paid the nominal £251 a month to live off of, less than half what someone of my state is entitled to, what someone so severely disabled they can’t leave the house most of the time desperately needs to get by.
Our interview was short, the judge and doctor present were professional, stern even. The clerk helped us keep at ease, I did not cope well to say the least. I was truly terrified despite knowing how heavily the law was on my side, because that’s how uncertain of reality this process had made me. It was the first time I have ever caught myself shaking, and it was clear to them all that this was putting me through hell.
They asked a handful of questions, then paused. They talked quietly amongst themselves and then turned and asked ‘Anything you want to add?’. I replied that there were a million things I want to add, but that they have already read everything that relates to their task from my submissions. We were then asked to go outside while they discuss their ruling. At the time, the shortness of the meeting concerned me, I was scared, scared by those lies the agent told about people like me not qualifying.
When we were invited back in, they announced they had accepted our appeal. I cried as the relief washed over me, I felt vindicated, free from a burden that had been crushing me for 18 months. The clerk took us outside and discussed what exactly this all meant, saying that I ‘have been given everything I could have wanted here today’.
The document we and the DWP were given was short and to the point. The reason for the shortness of the interview became obvious upon reading it, they only answered 2 questions, enough to give me 15 points. Clearly seeing the stress of asking me everything as unnecessary and ending it when they thought they had enough to go off of. This act of kindness would be twisted into something vile by the DWP in the following 6 weeks.
By not scoring me on a certain section, a rule that neither I nor the CAB had ever been informed of states that while the DWP recognises I am completely unfit for any form of work, I am also not entitled to any extra payments. The actions and comments from the court clerk suggests that the Court and Tribunals Service was perhaps equally uninformed by the DWP, as they would not have told me I was awarded everything if they did not believe that was the case.
The implications of this are wide ranging depending on the exact details underneath all the murk. Perhaps the court has been lied to, or perhaps myself and the CAB had in a way that lead us to appeal the wrong thing? All we know for now is the CAB are bringing in some legal experts to plan how best to challenge this, it may end up going to a higher court.
Years more of waiting lies ahead of me, my treatment stalled, my victory stolen from me by an agent who failed multiple times to tell me the exact reason I was denied, misquoting the rule again and again, in fact from the information the CAB has now gathered, the agent didn’t understand the rule even in their most recent explanation. The agent claimed I needed to score 15 points in a certain section, but that section is not scored in points, you either qualify or you don’t. Reading these sections, I certainly qualify, yet an agent who understands it less than a volunteer with a rule-book has stripped a disabled man of over £300 a month that a court had tried to grant him.
That is the true face of the DWP, incompetence mixed with inhumanity. A mad dash to disqualify as many people as possible with whatever technicalities they can find and conceal, all so they can tell their boss they ‘saved’ the government some money. No trick too dirty, no trust they will not abuse.
I imagine this is as hard to read as it was to write, but I hope that it forewarns anyone about to start the same path of the pitfalls built and hidden along the way. Always photograph your UC50, if you can find/afford one bring a double cassette recorder to your interview (they don’t allow digital devices, instead demanding an archaic and widely unowned device, I wonder why..).
Always back your argument up with quotations from the rules, the CAB have access to them, and make careful note of every ‘mistake’ the agent makes so that you can submit it to the court, the reason for this is in my case they relied almost solely on my personal testimony, and I have to imagine the things they read about the agent’s actions heavily weighted their decision of who to trust.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, I’m sorry its such a depressing subject.
Matt
Nerve-wracking 