Advice team celebrates disability benefit appeal success

The Advice Team provided by Dorset’s disability charity, Diverse Abilities, celebrates a success rate of more than 90 per cent from disability benefit appeals in the past year.

The team has won 93 per cent of appeals from April 2019 to March 2020. A portion of these were decided on the papers, meaning the claimant did not have to attend the hearing in person. The Tribunals Service statistics states an average of 73 per cent of claims should be successful.

Advice service manager, Elaine Ewing, commented: “Many people understandably feel that they can’t manage to go through the appeal process, or simply don’t have the strength to and give up. It is sad when people give up as they have already completed the main part of the journey; completing the application form, attending a consultation, and submitting a Mandatory Reconsideration.

“Attending an appeal is their chance to explain their situation to an independent panel who will look again at the facts and decide whether to Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) decision was right or wrong.”

These appeal panels are completely independent from the DWP and are experienced in hearing cases from people of all walks of life and will, as far as possible, accommodate everyone’s needs on the day.

A successful outcome often results in a back payment of the relevant benefit to the date of the original decision.

Visit diverseabilities.org.uk/advice for more details on the service.