Failure by DWP to initiate WCA and issue UC50 – our letter to the minister
Update 23 Nov 2022
We have re-sent our letter to Guy Opperman, the newly appointed Minister of State at the Department for Work and Pensions.
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28 Sep 2022
As highlighted in previous conferences, NAWRA has been working with the Strategic Public Law Centre and others to try and resolve the problem of the DWP’s failure to reliably initiate the WCA and issue the UC50, resulting in disabled claimants missing out on the LCWRA element – worth more than £350/month – for months or even years.
We met with officials towards the end of last year and put forward a simple proposal – to put an automated message into the claimant’s journal when they first submit a fitnote to advise them of WCA process and, if they don’t receive a UC50 within 4 weeks, to raise it with their work coach.
However, DWP decided not to implement this and instead said they would ‘explore what might be added to published information’.
NAWRA has now written, with Disability Benefits Consortium and Disability Rights UK, to the new DWP Minister of State Victoria Prentis calling on her to put the solution in place as a matter of urgency.
We have also asked for a meeting with officials.