mike shermer
Welfare Benefits Officer, Kings Lynn & West Norfolk Borough Council, Kings l
Member since 23rd Jan 2004
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RE: Appeals/ law or commonsense
Wed 21-Apr-04 07:45 AM |
I'm afraid I have to agree with Phil for at least two reasons; firstly it is often the case that reasonableness and commonsense are all too often ingredients lacking in the decisions that we are challenging: there appears to be a new generation of decision makers who just do not appear to have any knowledge of even the more outstanding appeal court and House of lords cases which went to shape the regulations we argue about - Fairy & Mallinson to name but a couple. I've even had AA refused for a client that was blind, DLA refused for a nine year old who could go into anaphalatic shock at any time: I've lost count of the number of times decision makers and tribunals have cherry picked parts of a medical report, (ignoring other conclusions in the same report) to support an irrational decision, in total contradiction of precedent law.
I have also learnt, unfortunately from bitter experience, that even tribunals sometimes appear to have their own definition of what is commonsense and reasonable - I've lost count of the number of times I've been told about how it's public money, and cannot be awarded lightly etc - (perhaps not in those words).
When you take on an Appeal, it should be with the believe that a client has a good case, and is deserving of an award. Therefore we should be using all the means at our disposal to achieve that end: the Regs themselves, Comm decisions, Appeal courts and H of Lords decisions if necessary as well as an arguement based upon commonsense and reasonableness.
It's probably now the case that there is more precedent law than statute, particularly in the areas of AA & DLA. OK, the research can be time comsuming and sometimes tedious, as can producing the submissions, but to do less than the best for the client is, as Phil quite clearly puts it, reprehensible.
Our clients are on fixed benefit incomes, and many will remain so for the foreseeable future - it is our job to ensure that we maximise that income to the best of our ability and by whatever means we can within the law - it's not just about money though, it's also about quality of life. Unless you've been unemployed and tried to live on the basic benefit, you cannot begin to imagine how isolated you become from the rest of the world, and how quickly your self esteem evaporates.
That's why this job is almost unigue in that it's one of those that you either love or hate - there's no middle road where you can do just enough to get by.
Apologies for the length of posting, but like Phil I was somewhat taken aback by the question..................
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