Around 164,000 people could be owed up to £12,000 due to legal error
The Department for Work and Pensions could owe thousands of people a payment of up to £12,000 due to a legal error.
There are 21 health conditions that make you most likely to receive the money, due to a legal error relating to points awarded for Personal Independence Payments (PIP).
Results of this error forced DWP to pay out £18 million already to those people who were refused PIP or were left with lower payments after their PIP points were not high enough and did not qualify them.
As reported by BirminghamLive, one gentlemen received a staggering payout of £12,000 from DWP after his case was reviewed along side two requests and an attempt to take DWP to a tribunal.
The claimant has a severe mental condition and felt he was eligible for the PIP back payment.
After a continuous battle, it was established that he was eligible for the PIP back payment and a serious error had been made, awarding him with £12,000 backpay, after officials agreed to carry out a ‘mandatory reconsideration’.
Discovering the error, the social security site and Benefits and Work has identified a list of 21 health conditions that DWP official documents state are likely to be eligible for backpay.
The key conditions are:
- Agoraphobia
- Alcohol misuse
- Anxiety and depressive disorders (mixed)
- Anxiety disorders
- Autism
- Bipolar affective disorder (Hypomania / Mania)
- Cognitive disorders
- Dementia
- Depressive disorder
- Drug misuse
- Learning disability
- Mood disorders
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD
- Panic disorder
- Personality disorder
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Psychotic disorders
- Schizoaffective disorder
- Schizophrenia
- Stress reaction disorders
Benefits and Work said: "It should be stressed that this was just the DWP’s prediction of who is most likely to be eligible. Just because your condition is not listed here, that does not mean that you are not entitled to a back payment.
"Nor, if your condition is listed here does it mean that you are going to get an award. It is clear that the DWP has chosen to make very few awards indeed.
"The DWP has paid out £18 million so far to PIP claimants who lost out because of a legal error relating to the PIP mobility component, but this figure is a tiny fraction of the £3.7 billion the department said that putting right the error would cost by 2022.
"If the current rate of awards continues, fewer than 7,000 claimants will get an award. That is less than half of one per cent as opposed to around 16% that the DWP experts had predicted."
Why the extra money?
The error first came into view in a High Court ruling in December 2017.
They discovered that DWP had not followed correct regulation procedures for points given to allow people to be mobile.
PIP consists of two parts – a daily rate for those struggling with everyday tasks, and a mobility rate for those who need help moving around or going out for essential journeys.
The weekly rate for the mobility payment is either £23.70 or £62.55 equivalent to £94.80 or £250.22 a month.
This means claimants should have received these payments from PIP if their psychological distress stopped them from participating in local essential journeys without assistance or support from someone.
Taking a huge toll on someone's life, DWP only awarded four points to those from this assessment resulting in people not qualifying for the PIP mobility rate at all.
Others only qualified for the daily living rate but still needed help with mobility so only received one when they were in fact entitled to both.
Some weren’t able to qualify for either of the payments that they should have been eligible for, receiving no PIP.
DWP are now reassessing claims that were turned down or wrongly issued the correct points, resulting in extra cash and some big back payments to those who were turned down before.
How many people are affected?
Around 164,000 claimants would be affected by this error, this includes 143,000 who now qualify for PIP after previously being refused and another 21,000 whose PIP would now be correct and will go up.
The total bill DWP is expected to face is almost £3.7 billion between 2017 and 2020, to cover all new claimants as well as the backpay they now owe.
However, Benefits and Work believes the error will result in fewer people qualifying for extra cash, believing it will be less than 7,000 people.
According to DWP figures, a total of 900,000 people have already been reassessed.
A spokesperson for DWP said: "We already updated guidance for new PIP decisions to make sure people are receiving their full amount and are committed to making backdated payments for those eligible as soon as possible.”
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