Got my PIP face to face assessment next week :(

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These people are trained to be all nice and friendly or at least neutral so you cannot know how it will go.
They do this everyday as a job and their aim is to get information. They are good at it.

As a claimant it is your job to be prepared for anything and have all the relevant information. This includes doing your homework regarding the descriptors and criteria for getting your points.

The process will happen no matter what your opinion is or whether you think they are right or wrong or incompetent. Being armed with the answers to their questions and having someone with you to help you with this is paramount.

When it goes wrong and you need a reconsideration, you will need to take the time to find out the best way to approach this. Take your time with each step making sure you know what to do by looking at websites which know what they are talking about.

This is a very stressful and painful process for anyone to go through and it needs careful thought and attention.

Hi from another 'zero-pointer'!

I personally know at least two others on the spectrum who also got zero - including one guy who was on the old-style DLA benefit who had consistently been scored at over 20 points under the old system for years!

As others have said, the score is meaningless - just a ruse to try and make folks give up on their claim. The magazine 'Private Eye' (UK) has been following the progress of PIP very closely, and have written about evidence uncovered that at least some assessment centres have a target of rejecting at least 80% of new applicants, not to mention countless incidents of assessors outright lying about what the claimant did and said at the assessment (a good reason to never attend alone!)

Don't panic if your mandatory reconsideration also results in zero points - it most likely will, as this step in the process is simply another delaying tactic to try and put you off appealing. Unless you present completely new formal documentary evidence, I doubt that they even read the letter - the reply I got back didn't even mention a single one of the points of contention that I asked to be reconsidered, it just reiterated what was already said in the original decision (and my letter was written with the help of a professional disability advocate.)

I'm now going through appeal, and I've had one tribunal hearing already. Although it had to be adjourned due to legal technicalities, it was generally positive (though extremely nerve-wracking!) I got the sense from the experience, and from comments that my disability advocate has made, that the tribunal courts are utterly sick and tired of the games that the DWP is playing. I have to admit, I was rather amused at the way that the Judge and medical panel ripped the poor DWP representative to shreds!! It also seems that the courts do generally make an effort to have at least one medical professional on the panel who has some understanding of the condition for which the claim is being made (they won't ask you, yet again, whether you can walk 50 yards or open a tin of baked beans if you never claimed any kind of physical disability!)

The success rate at appeal has consistently been 60% and up ever since this whole PIP charade began. It's a rough ride for sure, but hang in there if you can, as you likely have far more chance of success than 'zero points' might seem to imply - they're just telling you that in a deliberate attempt to demoralise you, the (insert favourite curse here!).

I'm not sure that my tribunal was quite typical - as I said, there were legal technicalities to do with DWP's paperwork, so for the most part, the Judge and panel were just talking to the DWP representative so that they could rule on some actions that DWP needed to take ready for a second tribunal. Part of this is that the responsibility for the benefit award has now been taken out of DWP's hands. Their only role now it to supply some documents that they've been ordered to by the court, then it will be the Tribunal, not DWP, who will decide how many points I should be awarded.

One good thing I noticed is that the DWP representative is not allowed to interrogate you directly, everything has to go through the Judge and medical panel. It's not like a Law Court where you would be up on a stand with no idea what questions are going to be thrown at you (direct confrontation was my biggest worry, so phew!). They also let me know up front that I was allowed to ask for a break at any point if I got too overwhelmed or if I needed to clarify what I was being asked with my advocate before answering. They also put quite a lot of effort into ensuring that I knew exactly what was going on at all times, and to be clear about what the purpose of each step was.

On the whole, although the experience of being in an unfamiliar setting with unfamiliar people was very overwhelming, I felt that the court staff and the Judge and panel were very considerate and conscious of the fact that the experience might be challenging for someone with my condition. Other people I've spoken to who have had tribunals locally have also said pretty much the same thing, though I suppose that might vary depending on where you are.

After putting in my MR, I got a reply in only two or three weeks (zero points again!) However, once I applied for the appeal, it did take a few months before I heard about the tribunal date (they're probably overwhelmed with the number of people that DWP are putting through all this.)

I don't have any physical condition which affects my mobility, but interestingly enough, that was one of the points that the Judge did speak about. She ruled that DWP had not considered that social anxiety and fear of a meltdown could affect my ability to access the outside world just as much as many physical impairments. Likewise, she pointed out that, when I neglect to feed myself properly, it should make no difference whether this is because of being physically unable to use a kitchen or because of psychological/neurological reasons.

I recently heard that I'd failed my mandatory reconsideration - that means I'm now up to the appeal stage, too... This whole thing is so stressful. I sympathise with everyone else who has or is suffering through this whole process. :/ Personally wouldn't have been able to keep at it if I hadn't been receiving help from my parents and an advocacy worker. At this point, I honestly believe they are deliberately putting applicants off getting the help they need by drowning them in bureaucratic obstacles, deadlines and constant form-filling.
Really nervous about the appeal process. I've never claimed anything before and just feel utterly despondent at actually being able to come out of the whole process better off, instead of miserable with an increasingly pessimistic view of the world.

I went through something like that years ago. Ironically, my lack of social skills made it harder for me to describe my problems and symptoms. So if I didn't have any difficulties, I would have been able to describe the symptoms perfectly but then there would have been nothing to describe. It's like they're actually making it harder for disabled people to pass the assessment because you have to describe your symptoms with the accuracy of a doctor, the precision of a lawyer and the poignancy of a poet all while maintaining perfect verisimilitude. That's not easy for someone with social problems!

Another update to the thread - the mandatory reconsideration came back as 0 points as well. It's soul destroying. Here I am about to lose my job because I've been off sick for so long and just can't get the help. I know it's nothing to do with whether you can work or not, but it should be obvious to them things aren't right. I just don't know where they get these numbers from. Reluctantly I'm going to probably have to go to tribunal now