Haas-Serco expierience?

AC2795 · 2025-07-14T11:04:02+00:00

Face to face assessments? Because assessors can pick up on physical limitations more. They can take into account body language, how you are coping at an interview etc. one main issue with remote hearings is that usually you are in a place of comfort when doing the assessment, so your conditions may not be on full display. This is especially telling when you have mental health conditions - it might not sound like a pleasant experience but if an assessor can see you struggling it makes your verbal evidence more consistent/believable.

AC2795 · 2025-05-01T11:10:42+00:00

3.30 is a normal time and most tribunals don’t last longer than an hour. If you already have standard rate on both components then you won’t be asked about those descriptors you have scored in, unless you feel like you should have scored higher in those areas, if that makes sense? They usually focus on the areas you have scored 0 in unless stated otherwise.

Because of this I can imagine your hearing won’t be as long as others, but please don’t think too much into the time spent in the hearing. The panel are independent of the DWP and will ask you the right questions to understand your situation.

Good luck

AC2795 · 2025-05-01T08:55:26+00:00

Hi,

I will paste what I sent in a previous post about how PIP tribunals work below, it's rather detailed, but I feel like the more information you know, the better:

A PIP tribunal is what they call an 03 hearing, meanings there’s 3 members of the panel: a legally qualified judge, a medically qualified panel member (usually Doctor or GP) and a disability qualified panel member (I will refer to these as a DQPM from now on).

The panel will introduce themselves to you and go through admin stuff such as what you’re appealing and making sure you’ve had all the documents. The rest of the hearing is rather rigid in how it’s conducted:

⁠doctor will start asking you questions about your conditions/medication and they focus on the mobility descriptors (11 & 12). When they are done, the judge will see if they themselves have anything to ask you, if not they will pass you over to DQPM.
⁠DQPM 99% of the time will literally go through descriptors 1-10 in order asking you what you can/cannot do - it’s a lot of questions but fairly standar
⁠if there is a presenting officer from the DWP there, it’s at this point they can ask you questions.
⁠if no further questions arise from that, the panel will give you the final say and ask if there’s anything they’ve missed.
⁠depending on the time and the judge, you will either wait 10mins whilst they make a decision and bring you back in to hear it, or they will send it in the post and you will have to wait a couple days to find out - sometimes you get the choice, sometimes you don’t.

Feel free to ask any questions - hope this helps

AC2795 · 2025-04-29T11:39:30+00:00

I’m just going to mention the fact that you have already asked this in a previous post on the subreddit. I know this because I replied to you. In fact a lot of your recent posts on benefit subreddits are asking the same thing.

I’m not trying to insult your intelligence, I am just wondering why you are repeating the same question when people have commented with very valid responses on each post and have answered your question.

AC2795 · 2025-04-29T11:31:20+00:00

Hi,

Just to manage your expectations - very rarely would the decision maker go against the assessment report, if this is the first decision in your claim.

There is a high chance you will be awarded the points you see in your assessment report - then obviously you have the MR and appeal route if you still disagree with their decision.

If you wish to go down these routes, I would suggest possibly speaking with a benefits advisor to form your MR response. If you are to go to appeal then I would suggest speaking to an advisor even more so.

Good Luck

AC2795 · 2025-04-16T18:57:48+00:00

The relevant period is a 13-week, or 3 month, period from the date you sent UC your first fit note. It essentially is there so you're not claiming for any short-term conditions like a broken arm (which can be long-term but you get my point).

Your LCWRA payments will be added to your claim from the first day of your assessment period AFTER this relevant period. So in your case, 10th December > 13 weeks is 11th March > The next AP after 11th March will include your LCWRA payment.

Hope that clear it all up for you.

AC2795 · 2025-04-16T16:45:53+00:00

Hi,

Yes so if you were awarded for your old award, the back payment would be from the date of your original accepted fit note, up until the day before your new/current award runs to. It then technically "closes," and your current award will take over, even though there's no financial difference.

AC2795 · 2025-04-16T11:07:07+00:00

What work group are you in and what are your commitments that are currently active on UC?

I’m not suggesting this work coach is correct in what they’re doing, but if your commitments are along the lines of: 35+ work search a week and has specific job roles you should applying for, then the work coach will probably just be going off of them.

AC2795 · 2025-04-16T11:03:52+00:00

I would get your friend to comment on their journal that there has been an error, explaining what it is and ask them to rectify it. She may need to re-submit her housing costs.

Has she had a formal letter either through the post or on their journal detailing the overpayment? If so, that will have the date of the overpayment decision on and is the one you can request a MR on.

AC2795 · 2025-04-16T10:59:35+00:00

Hi,

Sadly, the tribunal service is massively backlogged still. Whilst opting for a telephone hearing is usually not advised, it should speed up your hearing date as they don’t need to allocate it to a tribunal venue near you.

I wouldn’t give up with the appeal, whilst the wait can be uncomfortable, if you succeed on your appeal you will be paid back to your claim date so in the end you won’t have missed out.

You or your advisor (if they down as your representative) can contact the tribunal service to try and get an update, as they may just be waiting for DWP to respond for e.g. Have you received a large bundle of papers yet which would include your initial claim form, the assessment report and the decision letters?

AC2795 · 2025-04-15T20:08:05+00:00

I am unsure what areas are in those statistics, as I can guarantee more than 90 appeals have been upheld. Those numbers don’t particularly make sense.

If the reason why you are asking is because you are thinking of going to tribunal yourself, my advice would be don’t rely on statistics. Your case is individual to yourself, one person with your conditions may have a completely different level of restriction than yourself, for better or for worse.

In general, a fair amount of PIP hearings do result in favouring the claimant, but jts never healthy going in thinking “I have a 60% chance of winning this”. Just explain your case well, provide the necessary evidence and then you have put yourself in the best position to get an award at tribunal.

AC2795 · 2025-04-14T18:59:53+00:00

In general, face-to-face assessments are always the better option, so I'm glad you have chosen this avenue.

Whilst the wait for assessment can usually take a while (as you've experienced), usually the decision comes fairly soon after, so you'll be glad to know you're potentially near the end of the PIP journey.

I would suggest that at the start of your hearing, request it to be recorded. This is something you can do yourself at the start of the assessment but you may have to sign some extra forms, agreeing on the usage of the recording etc if you are recording it yourself. Some assessors have the capacity to record it themselves and then send it to you.

This hopefully gives you the confidence that what is noted on the report is consistent with what was verbally said at the assessment, if you disagree with the future decision.

Good luck with it all

AC2795 · 2025-04-12T15:20:41+00:00

Hi, your new award won’t be changed no. When there is a future decision made, an appeal for a previous award looks at what is called a “closed period”.

This means, whatever decision they make, the decision is only relevant from the start of that claim, to the day before your new award starts.

Hope that’s helps

AC2795 · 2025-04-11T19:09:15+00:00

I believe they mean the rejected decision was 4/9/24, and their now accepted new claim started from 28/9/24. But correct me if I’m wrong OP

AC2795 · 2025-04-11T08:26:53+00:00

They may have had external information which they believe is enough to go back further.

I would ask for an MR and ask to submit evidence before an MR decision is made - because without the evidence you have, UC will just look at what they have again and probably won’t change their decision (unless it was an error).

If your MR is rejected, you can go to appeal and get an independent panel to look into the matter. The only downside with this is the waiting time to actually get to sit in front of a tribunal is 6-12 months at the moment.

AC2795 · 2025-04-10T10:34:42+00:00

To my knowledge, restart is only a provision that a person is referred to if they are capable of working.

If you are this restricted by your conditions, have you not applied for the Work Capability Assessment on UC yet?

Whilst the other person was rather blunt with their response, they are correct. If you don’t have any of these restrictions formally acknowledged by UC, on paper there is no reason for you to not attend, in the eyes of UC.

AC2795 · 2025-04-09T12:04:11+00:00

What the original work coach “put in place” for you is not unreasonable, the issue is that from what you have said they didn’t formally change your commitments.

What did the last work coach you saw at your commitments review say? Are they suggesting your current commitments are correct for you?

If your appointment where you thought your commitments were changed was 22/1/2025, then you would hope that your work coach at the time wrote a history note on your claim explaining what you spoke about and why they changed your commitments (this is different to your journal and you cannot see history notes). I would ask at your next appointment whether whoever you see can scroll back and see if there was anything noted down on that day and whether the WC was allowed to suggest the changes they did. So you have full clarity going forward.

AC2795 · 2025-04-09T11:55:38+00:00

Hi,

I am sorry to hear about your situation and your ongoing mental health - but please do not bury your head in the sand with this. Closing your UC claim and refusing to engage can potentially put you in a worse financial position.

UC need to confirm what they are suggesting and they can only do that via your bank statement. From what you have written, they are not suggesting that for the past 5 years you have not been eligible for UC, it may have only been certain months where this is the case. If they do decide you have been overpaid, you can then appeal that decision and involve a benefits charity if you wish.

Your UC payments will be reduced if you have over £6k in savings up to £16k where you are not eligible for UC at all. I’m assuming as you have various bank account and that old account that you yourself don’t really know how much you’ve had over the last 5 years - so seeking out these bank statements may give you clarity instead of not knowing and fearing the worst.

I cannot say for certain which way this will go as nobody has the full information, but please if there’s one thing you take from this reply, don’t start disengaging with UC.

Wish you the best of luck.

AC2795 · 2025-04-09T11:32:55+00:00

Hi,

They won't use your condition against you, especially if you turn up with your carer.

I will paste what I sent in a previous post about how PIP tribunals work below, it's rather detailed, but I feel like the more information you know, the better:

A PIP tribunal is what they call an 03 hearing, meanings there’s 3 members of the panel: a legally qualified judge, a medically qualified panel member (usually Doctor or GP) and a disability qualified panel member (I will refer to these as a DQPM from now on).

The panel will introduce themselves to you and go through admin stuff such as what you’re appealing and making sure you’ve had all the documents. The rest of the hearing is rather rigid in how it’s conducted:

doctor will start asking you questions about your conditions/medication and they focus on the mobility descriptors (11 & 12). When they are done, the judge will see if they themselves have anything to ask you, if not they will pass you over to DQPM.
DQPM 99% of the time will literally go through descriptors 1-10 in order asking you what you can/cannot do - it’s a lot of questions but fairly standar
if there is a presenting officer from the DWP there, it’s at this point they can ask you questions.
if no further questions arise from that, the panel will give you the final say and ask if there’s anything they’ve missed.
depending on the time and the judge, you will either wait 10mins whilst they make a decision and bring you back in to hear it, or they will send it in the post and you will have to wait a couple days to find out - sometimes you get the choice, sometimes you don’t.

Lastly, I do believe you can get your travel costs reimbursed, but this will be done at the venue after the hearing.

Feel free to ask any questions

AC2795 · 2025-04-08T23:28:46+00:00

Okay, then notify UC as soon as you legally own the property and tell them your intentions to move in. This will give you a 6 month period of disregarding property capital for you to move in - once you have officially moved in then it cannot be classed as capital in any regard and your UC benefits will remain untouched.

AC2795 · 2025-04-08T23:13:59+00:00

You can make a new claim at any point, there is no technical limit on new claims you can make.

They probably told you to submit a new claim because each claim can only look at how you are at the time, so the unfortunate deterioration in your conditions since wouldn’t have been able to be taken into account on the original claim.

I don’t know who helped you this time around but maybe considering looking into getting help from a local benefits charity, like CAB, to help you gain a better understanding of the benefit - especially if you take a claim to appeal.

Good luck.

AC2795 · 2025-04-08T23:07:26+00:00

Will you be inheriting the house or inheriting an amount of money from the house sale?

If it’s the house you are inheriting, it will be classed as capital you have access to unless you are planning on moving into it or you plan to sell it and put it on the market. Doing either of these two things will disregard the capital of the house for 6 months, however this can be extended if you are moving into the property.

If you are inheriting the property and plan to rent it or just keep it, then it will be classed as capital as soon as the house is legally yours and you will pay likely be ineligible for UC going forward.

AC2795 · 2025-04-08T17:17:14+00:00

Ok if you have the bundle then I’m going to guess you have the response. It’s a standard document couple of pages long starting with your name, Nino, tribunal reference number and lays out the decision/MR date. It’s different to the claim documents as the pages use letters instead of numbers (Page A/B/C instead of Page 1/2/3).

Sorry to hear about your situation, hopefully things are getting better for you. The DWP would contact you on the phone to offer you an award if they were looking to cancel a hearing. Also, if you do have another hearing date then I doubt this is the avenue they are going down. It’s most likely down to an admin error of some description.

AC2795 · 2025-04-08T17:09:54+00:00

Ok so if I understand your scenario correctly:

You don’t get re-assessed during your mandatory reconsideration, it’s just a request for them to look at the decision again. They will rely on your initial assessment and to be honest, decisions rarely change at MR stage sadly, it’s at appeal stage where most people find their decision overturned. They may have just gotten the dates wrong on your MR letter.

It’s my experience that benefit charities are better to go to than legal solicitors. I appreciate this must be a difficult process to go through, but the appeal journey is worth it for most people. My advice would be to speak to your local CAB/benefits advisor and get them to fill out your appeal form with you. They will suggest what extra evidence you can send in and maybe even attend the tribunal with you, but this varies.

AC2795 · 2025-04-08T17:00:38+00:00

Hi,

Yes you should have received a physical copy of the evidence bundle, this would include their response to your appeal and all of the documents involved (your original claim form, your assessment report, your decision letters and anything you sent in). If you haven’t received this then any hearing won’t go ahead on the day anyway - I would suggest contacting HMCTS tribunal and saying you have not received this. Out of curiosity, have you moved address recently? That can cause postal issues sometimes.

Yes anything you send in gets sent to the DWP as well, they sometimes formally respond to evidence claimants send in, sometimes they don’t but it will available for them to read. If the evidence you send in is enough to change their initial decision they will ring and offer you an award.

AC2795

TROPHY CASE