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Don't panic.
Social security commissioners' decisions can be very useful when you are appealing a disability living allowance decision. But knowing about them definitely isn't a necessity and the vast majority of claimants who win their appeals do so without ever quoting any commissioners' decisions.
However, welfare rights workers and some claimants do sometimes include decisions in their appeal submissions. Social security commissioners' decisions are binding on tribunals, so a relevant one can be very useful.
For example, if a commissioner holds that, for the purposes of DLA, chronic fatigue syndrome should be regarded as both a physical and mental health condition then tribunals must take into account both the physical effects and any mental health effects which hamper the abilities of a claimant with CFS.
This could be very important because if the condition is regarded as entirely a mental health one then the claimant will be unable to get an award of higher rate mobility. On the other hand, if it is regarded as entirely physical, then mental health effects that, for example, make it difficult for the claimant to concentrate sufficiently to prepare a cooked main meal may not be taken into account.
Often it's not so straightforward, however. Sometimes different commissioners may come to completely opposite conclusions and it's then up to a tribunal to decide which commissioner they will follow. Or the facts of the case may be materially different from yours. Or the decision may be very helpful in some regards, but actually quite damaging to your case in others, so you may not want to alert the tribunal to it.
Find out more
If you want to know more, there's a brief section on using commissioners decisions in our guide to The Best Possible Support for Clients with DLA and AA Appeals which can be downloaded by all Benefits and Work members.
Searchable decisions
We've published the full text of over 260 disability living allowance commissioners' decisions on the site. We haven't written summaries of them - though we explain where to find summaries in the guide mentioned above. Instead, however, we've done our best to make it possible for you to search the full text of the decisions - something that isn't possible anywhere else on the internet.
How to search
If, for example, if you want to find any disability living allowance decisions relating to epilepsy then simply type the word epilepsy into the search box above and click on Go.
When the search results appear, choose 'Section/category' from the ordering drop down list and click on Go again.
All of the disability living allowance decisions will be grouped together in one place - though not necessarily at the start of the search results - they will begin with the letters CDLA, CSDLA or R(DLA).
If you want to use a decision for a hearing, however, make sure you follow the link to the commissioners website that appears at the top of every decision we publish. Print off the official copy from that link because it will be formatted in the same way as the original decision, whereas ours are just plain text. |
