nevip
welfare rights adviser, sefton metropolitan borough council, liverpool.
Member since 22nd Jan 2004
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RE: Community Care Grant for a stairlift ?
Tue 08-Jul-08 03:28 PM |
I recently went to the IRS on review for one of these and was knocked back. A stairlift is not an excluded item by the way.
The issue turned on the following passage: -
“Section 140(l)(c) of the Contributionns and Benefits Act states that ‘in determining whether to make an award to the applicant or the amount or value to be awarded a social fund officer shall have regard, subject to subsection (2) below, to all the circumstances of the case and, in particular— the possibility that some other person or body may wholly or partly meet it’”.
SF guidance says that SFO’s should check with LA’s to see if they have statutory duties or discretionary powers to provide assistance. If there is a statutory duty then the CCG is likely to be refused. If there is a discretionary power only then all the individual circumstances need to be investigated further”.
Because my client had asked Social Services for an assessment then she fell foul of section 140 even though I argued that there was no guarantee of the stairlift being assessed as needed or even if it was, then in our area there is a 1-2 year waiting list.
The problem is the looseness of the language of the section, i.e. “the possibility that some other person or body may wholly or partly meet it”. In other words because a stairlift is something that local authorities are empowered to provide under community care law then the SFO and SFI would not award my client a CCG for one.
I argued that only after the item was assessed as needed was there a statutory duty to provide. The LA might have had a statutory duty to assess but might not have agreed with the need. This would not be conclusive as to actual need as an LA can take its resources into account in deciding whether to provide an item while carrying out the assessment. There may also be conflicting medical evidence.
It is only after the item is assessed as needed that the LA cannot take its resources into account. Thus, I argued, there was not a statutory right to a stairlift and in the circumstances of my client’s case (delay in the LA providing the item, her frailty, her age and the seriousness of her conditions) an award should be made. My arguments fell on deaf ears.
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