Looking for a bit of advice on best way to appeal the decision to award me 0 points on ESA. I am suffering from ulnar nerve problems in both my arms and I am on a waiting list for surgery on my left arm. I was claiming ESA due to the fact I had dropped to half pay at work and only just on the 25th Feb (a few weeks after my medical assessment for ESA) did I come to an agreement with my employer to end my time with them. I received a call yesterday informing me of the decision to award me 0 points, despite the fact I have been signed off work for a year and provided a medical assessment report from a BUPA doctor that had been paid for by my employer. Interestingly before I was told I had 0 points I was asked if I had a date for my operation. Told them I didn't but I did have a waiting list letter stating it is due before the 8th May. She then listed the fact I didn't have an appointment date as one of the reasons for being unable to continue ESA payments. I don't know how to appeal this as I felt all the answers I gave to the questions were truthful. The physical part of the assessment involved me lifting my arms, bending them, bending my hands together which I can do but ask me to do it continuously for about 5 minutes and that's when the pain/numbness begins. Is this probably why I have been given 0 points and told I am fit for work? I didn't give up a 9 year career lightly and I certainly didn't give it up for to be told by someone that doesn't even know me I am fit for work when my own GP, Occupational Health, BUPA Doctor and managers have all seen how much this has affected me over the last year.

Thanks for the replies. Apologies but I should have mentioned that I am being treated by NHS Scotland. I was first referred by my GP back in March last year. Waited until June to see a specialist who recommended a Nerve Conduction Study. This was carried out in September. Then had to wait until November to see specialist again who then contacted me by phone after speaking to surgeon to suggest operation. I was told I would be put on a 12 week waiting list from that date. This would have brought me to sometime around now. If that was the case I would not have been anywhere near signing the settlement agreement with work as I would have a very good idea if the operation had worked and then could have coped with maybe a month or so of zero pay before being fit to go back.

I have been signed off work since last March and got to a point late November where I spoke to specialist on phone and she told me that an operation was the only option. When I agreed to this she said she would get me placed on the waiting list which was currently a 12 week wait. It has now come to the point with my work where I am about to go to zero pay for 6 months and I have been offered a settlement agreement to leave (which if I don't take before I go down to zero pay it will be taken off the table) So before deciding whether to sign or not I phoned to see where I stood on a time for the operation only to be informed that for some reason I hadn't been placed on it. After some enquiries by an admin assistant I was told that April is the earliest possible time they could try and jump me ahead in the queue and she could only apologise for the mix up. However due to this mix up I have now had to take the settlement agreement as the operation is classed as only 50/50 meaning it is too big a gamble not to take a small sum of money. Is there any sort of complaint or compensation procedure I can through for the fact that this has now affected my actual employment?

Actually did just that today. Got the contact number for the legal services and they are sending me out a form to fill in to make the claim. Told me it's classed as repetitive strain injury which is one of the toughest to prove happened at work but is more than happy to work with me on it.

No I work for the railways

Thanks for your replies everyone. Bloomingflower you have put my mind at ease a bit about returning to work if I go ahead with a claim. obiter dictum - yeah it is probably going to be hard to get them to admit any sort of liability but the way I was spoken to has basically made me decide to go ahead with this as they are determined I am going to sign a compromise agreement at some point meaning if I did I would never be able to make a claim in the future. ssparks2003 - thankfully I still have a year before they can terminate my contract, 6 months half pay and 6 months no pay with a holding letter securing my job

I have been signed off work since March with ulnar nerve entrapment which is causing me a lot of pain in my dominant arm and sleepless nights etc. My employer has gotten to the point where I am going in for "Welfare" meetings every 2 weeks to discuss if anything has changed. Basically it is the waiting on hospital appointments etc that is taking so long. They offered me a compromise agreement to leave as I am due to go to half pay. When I rejected this I was told that it has been hard for them to fill my job and that if I am not back in a month or so they will need to offer me another agreement (basically made to feel like I am going to have to take it). I don't want to end my career for what I see as pennies and hope that once full investigation has been done by hospital I can be back at work after treatment. However, people are telling me the reason they are trying to force these agreements on me is because I have told them the Dr stated that my duties at work is what could have caused the problem. I am not the type of person who tries to claim for compensation at the drop of a hat (since it has been 6 months since I first signed off) but with the way I was treated at the last meeting I am seriously thinking about it. Has anyone has a similar experience? The one thing putting me off is claiming compensation and getting it, then hopefully being back at work and wondering how they are going to treat me for going down that road.

But the initial calculation for my average wage included some overtime in it. So without the notice I had no idea of how much overtime pushed me over the average earnings they had calculated. The same can be said for a couple of months where I lost a few days pay as I used a company policy to take some days leave unpaid yet they haven't stated they underpaid me in those weeks

This is the part I read in the government guidelines that made me think it could be. I had no way of knowing how they had calculated my entitlement for that period between April 2014 and March 2015 as I did not receive a notice due to it being sent to wrong address. I was given the understanding that an average of my wage had been worked out which did include some overtime in the calculation. Therefore I had no reason to believe I was being overpaid and had nothing to work out if I was or not "2.139 Could the claimant, a person acting on their behalf or the person to whom the benefit was paid, reasonably have been expected to realise they were being overpaid, either at the time of the official error overpayment or any notice relating to the payments that were made? If the answer to this question is yes, then the HB or CTB overpayment is legally recoverable. If the answer to this question is no, then the overpayment is non-recoverable. It must be written off."

One bit I did notice from reading the Government guidelines was that a council couldn't recover an overpayment due to official error. When we moved house April 2014 and made a new claim - for some bizarre reason they sent our awards notice to the old address. This only came to light when they asked for payslips in March this year when our Child Tax Credits went down and they wanted to check it wasn't due to my income. So am I right in saying that for that period I had no way of knowing how the award had been calculated due to official error of sending the notice to the wrong address therefore they can't claim any of the overpayment for then?

Yeah I get all my payslips online so have them and P60's for that period. If I don't have tax credit notices I can use Internet banking to check the payments made. But if they are saying the info has come from HMRC and from the looks of things have basically turned each calculation into a 4 week period for each pay - why bother asking people for 3 payslips to work out an average and then hit them with this?

Received a letter on Friday from Glasgow City Council stating that due to information received from HMRC I have been overpaid HB by just under £2000 for various periods between March 2013 and now. In that period of time I have moved house twice and also had a cut in child tax credits which means that I have provided 3 monthly payslips 3 different times for them to work out my average wage and pay housing benefit. They now say that any overtime I have worked I should have been informing them. I barely do any overtime and assumed that as some of the payslips I had provided contained overtime on them this was why they said they worked my average wage out. I have 76 pages of new calculations to look through and see if they are right or wrong and I am sitting worrying about how we will get by. They have also stopped my housing benefit because my latest payslip shows I am earning too much to be entitled but this is only because the company I work for took so long to negotiate our annual pay rise for April that I had basically 6 months backdated pay in the one month. Really don't know where to start with all of this and any advice would be greatly appreciated

I got my payslip this week to find that there has been a court order deduction made on it. I rang my HR department who have sent out the paperwork and it is from Dundee City Council for unpaid Council Tax. About 2 and a half years ago I had a letter (which may have been a charge of payment) through the door. I phoned them up and began making a monthly payment towards this. Things then went a bit bad for a while, I ended up moving house twice in that period, money was tight so I stopped paying it as I couldn't afford it. I have never heard anything from them since (obviously due to me moving house twice) Obviously I know this is a debt I have to pay but I am just wondering if they are able to go straight in without having had any contact with me for 2 years? Also, my employer gave me no warning of a deduction being made against my wage until I got my payslip on Tuesday for the pay due Friday.

Hiya I owe roughly £1900 Like I say I was in student flats so the council tax was realllllly expensive

I take it that Councils stick to the amount that can be arrested and don't negotiate? They have said they won't arrest my wages as long as I phone first thing on the 5th and pay the sheriff officer fee, then they will discuss an arrangement with me. Thanks for your help though, I appreciate it. I might have to look at a debt plan if they aren't prepared to budge from that amount of money