representative attend oral tribunal on my behalf?

Annie wrote: Hello,

I am bedridden with severe M.E and have been too ill to leave my home now for five years. Travel would cause disastrous consequences, nor can I sit up, so I am too ill to attend a PIP oral tribunal. I know I can request a home tribunal but I have heard DWP are very reluctant to agree, or I could request a paper tribunal. My question though is can someone attend the oral tribunal on my behalf? I can't see anywhere on the SSCS1 appeal form where you can indicate this

Many thanks in advance

Just because Domiciliary hearings are rare doesn't mean that you should not request one. you can back it up by offering to do the hearing over video conferencing (Skype, etc.) or just over the telephone. In all cases explain why attending would be impossible.

In principle you can have someone attend on your behalf but the reality is that this can be as difficult to arrange as a hearing in your home. First of all, it is more likely to happen if you have a Representative, but it is very difficult to find a Rep for a First Tier hearing as there is legal aid at this stage. You can have someone else represent you but there will be reasonable concerns over their ability to explain your conditions and the limitations that result and whether their testimony would be impartial, you need to ask yourself whether such a person could do more harm than good. In all cases you need to ask permission of the Judge in advance of the hearing.

Lastly you can opt for a Paper hearing which is held in your absence. Although success rates for Paper hearings are quite good, they are not as nearly good as those for an Oral hearing, so you need to consider which is the better for you; attending and depreciating your reasons for qualifying versus not attending and being dependant on the quality of your submission. One last point, as you will not be notified of when the hearing will be carried out, you must ensure that all of evidence and your submission is complete and submitted to the Tribunal within the 28 days allowed from the date on the letter accompanying the DWP submission that you will be sent.

Gordon

Annie wrote: Thank you Gordon, appreciate your reply and you have given me a lot to think about.

Three more questions if that is ok, firstly, when you wrote above 'it is very difficult to find a Rep for a First Tier hearing as there is legal aid at this stage.' did you mean to write 'no legal aid at this stage'

Also if I go down the paper route as well as writing in the grounds of appeal section in the SSCS1 form should I submit a written submission as well? It would only be repeating what I wrote in the grounds of appeal section.

If I decided to send a representative to the oral tribunal or request a home tribunal do the tribunal members read the grounds for appeal section and all the case notes before the tribunal or only refer to the case papers in front of them whilst listening to the oral arguments ? Many thanks.

Sorry that should have read "no legal aid"

SSCS1 is intended for you to write a summary of your reasons for appeal, they do not even need to be specific. If you look at the PIP Appeal guide it explains how to complete the form.

You may want to complete a submission, whilst the PIP2 form obviously refers to the legal criteria against which you were assessed it does not detail them, so you should go through the PIP Claim guide with the PIP2 form and the assessors report to make sure that you fully explained why you meet the criteria to score points. Many of the activities have multiple criteria all of which must be met if you are to score, you may not have covered all of these on your form.

Whilst your primary goal is to show why you should score points, you do also need to deal with why the assessor and the Decision Maker didn't think you should score.

The Tribunal panel will look at all of the papers involved in the claim in advance of the hearing, usually the day before.

Gordon