My client was previoulsy awarded MRCC as she has an incontinence problem which means she wets the bed between 2 - 4 times every night. She was deemed to need prolonged/repeated attention at night only.
on renewal, the DM says that a 14 year old can reasonably be expected to get up and change her nightclothes, bed clothes and wash by hersslef. Award reduced to nil.
Mother's argumnet is that if she gets up to help her daughter it makes it all quicker, daughter can get back to sleep more quickly (and not be as tired at school next day) and avoid waking her two younger siblings.
DM says that washing the wet bedclothes cannot be taken into account - I'm sure I've seen a Comm decision contradicting that assertion.
I'm putting together an argument based on the mother's reasoning. Any thoughts?

1.Washing the bedclothes etc does count (if it needs to be done by another person). This is clear from the Court of Appeal decision in Ramsden - quotes from this and some discussion appear in Volume 1 of the Social Security Legislation at page 147. However, it would presumably be attention given BY DAY and thus not help with a night time case.

2. The argument you suggest is about whether the attention provided is reasonably required- is it reasonable the daughter is tired by day etc? Having said that- if the child has no other physical problems I cannot see how it is going to save that much time having two people doig this- what does the actual process involve- if it can be done quite quickly by the child then where is the problem.

I have seen similar cases lose- the problem is that older kids can manage more for themselves.

Dammit, there I go being negative again. Martin

Thanks Martin. You confirm more or less my own misgivings about this appeal. The client was only referred last week and has a date for appeal in January.
I found the Ramsden case and it is rather helpful. In my case, teh mother gets one load of washing on the go during the night so that she can keep on top of the laundry. She also says she can do the chnages much more quickly and quietly than her daughter. The daughter hardly wakes up fully. this means the daughter can get back to sleep more quickly and doesn't wake her siblings. So I'm arguing that it is reasonably required.
But I can see that a 14 year old could well do it all for herself.

a 14 year old girl wetting the bed is likely to have emotional or psychological problems, of which the bed-wetting is a symtom or manifestation. how reasonable it is to help her when she has to deal with the bed-wetting problem, or to leave her to deal with it alone, will depend on the circumstances, and could be very variable. i would expect that a big factor to be considered would be what is most likely to help with the emotional problems, and what might make them worse. and i would also expect that in most cases, the mother's insights into her child's emotional needs should be given a great deal of weight. you might need to explore these more closely with your client.

the argument about 'reasonableness' is the one i expect would come up, and i'd advise you to be wary of any attitude that re-classifies the problem as one of parenting, not disability. i encountered this in an incontinence case of a much younger child, and it appeared to originate from the medical member of the tribunal. the appeal submission as usual gave no coherent explanation, and there was no presenting officer, but the doctor went off on this approach very forcefully from the start, despite the evidence of her consultant that the case was exceptional.

the client didn't get the award justified by the evidence, but she didn't want to risk the award that was given, by appealing further.

i'd be very concerned if there is a movement to deny the weight to be given to a parent's judgement of what help their child reasonably requires, by the introduction of a dubious 'parenting problem' argument, when this has the effect of saving the government money and at the same time arguably infringing the right to family life.
( is the mother or the state the best judge of a child's best interests? of course, not all parents will be the best judge, but the state's view tends to be that cheapest is best.) fortunately the state is the first tier decision maker, so the tribunal is not bound to consider that good-parenting would invariably consider it reasonable that an emotionally troubled 14 year old should deal with her night-time problems without help.

jj

ps i've noticed a tendency by decision-makers to make blanket assumptions about children's abilities at the age of 14, which they are not supposed to do, are they?

jj

If care is, in fact, provided, then that may constitute strong evidence that it is "required". One Commissioner said: "mothers would be unlikely to exhaust themselves by providing it for years".

I did include the CD reference but it hasn't appeared in the posting. It is R(A) 1/73.