Judge Jacobs and Andrews...

SnowDragon

I am referring to the following documents in the PIP section

Submission re: preferring Judge Agnew over Judge Jacobs in relation to planning and following journeys

Submission re: planning and following journeys

I do understand what you are saying, but you are trying to argue points that by definition are ignored in Judge Jacobs Decision, by contrast, Judge Agnew's Decision supports many of the arguments that you are trying to make.

Which ever judgement is used, the intention of the Going Out Descriptor is to look at a claimants problems with planning and then following a route due to cognitive, mental health or sensory issues. The DWP guidance states that physical problems involved with following the route, which I think it likely that toilet will be seen as, will not be considered as part of the test. Decision Makers have consistently ignored arguments of physical problems when scoring claimants on this Activity.

Although the DWP guidance refers to the use of public transport being needing to be considered as part of a journey to an unfamiliar place, the legal definitions do not detail any such requirement, DM's have been following the legal definition and not the guidance, so I think it unlikely that they will score points for issues they might have at a bus stop or a train station.

Gordon

SnowDragon wrote: OK I think I am now totally confused.... To clarify the matter can you give an example of a situation and claimant that would qualify for this descriptor that the DWP would themselves agree would be entitled to that descriptor.

Are we now just talking of people who are blind or deaf? The autistic person cannot plan a journey and then needs someone with them to carry that journey out and lead them to the end of it and help them overcome difficulties they face such as buying tickets. Basically if you drew a map and gave it to the person in question they would not be able to follow the route on the map but would need someone with them to help them follow that route. Autism brings about cognitive issues which are detailed in the DWP guidance but so I can be totally clear are you able to give an example of an eligible claimant as I am now so confused.

Let's go back to the start.

Forget about the TWO judgments effecting this Activity for the moment!

Forget about the use of public transport, in most of the recent Decisions reported on the forum, the Decision Maker has taken no account of any problems the claimant would have with using a bus or train.

The Going Out Activity consists of basically three tests;

- planning a route
- following an unfamiliar route
- following a familiar route

All of these must be done reliably and for the majority of days to not potentially score points.

The first test is whether the claimant can plan a route from one place to another, the route must be reasonable, so if they consistently come up with a route they come up with would take a hour when it would be expected to take 10 minutes then you can argue that they cannot do it reliably.

In a similar vein if takes the person a significant amount of time to plan the route, more than twice the maximum time that a healthy person would be expected to take then they cannot do it reliably.

If the route they choose is not a safe one, for example it would involve crossing a major road at somewhere else than a proper crossing then it should be argued that they cannot do it reliably.

As to the two journeys;

First can they leave the house, obviously this primarily is relevant to those who suffer agoraphobia but it may be possible to argue that those with other conditions would still have problems, for example the rituals that someone with OCD may have, might mean it takes then hours to actually leave the house.

Then there are issue that the claimant might face outside of the house; do they react adversely to crowds and loud noises, would their anxiety be so great that they could not actually progress further. For an unfamiliar journey could they follow the instructions, how would they manage an obstruction such as a road closure or a diversion, if you have indicated problems with planning a route, they may not be able to re-plan the route to get around the problem. Do they have sufficient awareness of danger to deal with crossing the road or other dangers they may encounter.

You need to deal with the issue of prompting! The DWP view is that prompting can cure all the problems that a claimant might have on the journey, we believe that this is not reasonable, for example, would prompting be sufficient to help someone who is having a full blown panic attack in the street? We don't believe it would, so you need to explain for each relevant circumstance why prompting would be insufficient.

Returning to the judgements, you should be arguing that Judge Agnew's Decision should apply, the arguments for this are contained in the two documents that I posted previously.

Gordon