An interesting development of KDR work over the last few years has been our development of official error corrections of benefits payments. These occur when a mistake by an official acting for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) deprives a claimant of their entitlement. The usual process is to apply to the DWP for the error to be corrected and then, if it’s not, to appeal. Unfortunately it is very far from straightforward with some ultimately successful cases being struck out and then reinstated along the way.
The most common kind of Official Error for Personal Independence Payment (PIP )is when an unlawfully harsh interpretation of the PIP scheme is implemented. Such practices can result in the Upper Tribunal ruling a different approach is required in law than the one previously taken by the DWP.
The most striking of these in recent times was the 2017 decision ruling that “safely” as defined in regulation 4(2A) and 4(4) of the Social Security (Personal Independence Payment) Regulations 2013 does not mean something being "more likely than not" but rather the severity of the harm that could occur also has to be taken into account (RJ, GMcL and CS v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions v RJ (PIP) [2017] UKUT 105 (AAC)).
This forced the DWP to launch a reviews program often referred to as "LEAP", standing for Legal Entitlement and Administrative Practices. This has only covered claimants actually awarded PIP and whether they should have been awarded it as a higher rate. However, it may be that people without any award at all should also be benefiting from this program but are not currently. We are keen to hear from epileptic, deaf and severely visually impaired PIP claimants who believe they were unlawfully deprived of PIP prior to 9th of March 2017, perhaps only getting it on a later reclaim or not getting it at all.
Please note that for any application to correct an old claim to be successful there has to be a very clear error of law by officials. A standard refusal of a claim cannot be remedied as a normal appeal would be out of time. If you did appeal at the time and lost then no correction will be possible.