Why have descriptors if they are not going them ?

Buckie wrote: My apologies Gordon, I presumed the test “Move from one chair, next to it, without help” Meant you had to shuffle from one to another ! Sorry, I didn’t even think about, you could stand up and move to it then sit down… The thought never crossed my mind.

The reference to sitting for 42 mins having to get up twice, was in fact reference to how long you could stay at a work station before moving or standing up. Having to stand up every 15 minutes, and making it known it was with pain, again makes me think how the decision maker states “The evidence suggests Mr X can remain seated or unseated at a work station for longer than an hour ? “


I must be reading the questions wrong, so must get someone else to help me here !

Thanks all the same Gordon for your time, I’ll get to work on an Appeal…

To a considerable extent this will depend on whether you were assessed under the old "rules" or the new ones.

If the old rules then only the longest period of your being seated or standing should be considered, so if you were only able the stay seated for 15 minutes and then moved to a standing position and back to a seated one every 5 minutes from then on, then only the initial 15 minutes that you were seated would count,

This is the result of an Upper Tribunal case at the end of last year, which qualified whether the test was standing and sitting or standing or sitting, however, the descriptor was re-worded in January to invalidate this judgement and now reads.

The Standing and Sitting descriptor

(i) standing unassisted by another person (even if free to move around) or;
(ii) sitting (even in an adjustable chair); or
(iii) a combination of (i) and (ii),
for more than x minutes, before needing to move away in order to avoid significant discomfort or exhaustion.

I have underlined the key section. The intention of the descriptor is that the claimant can move between a seated and a standing position as they need to, and still be classed as being at a workstations, it is only when they move away from it that the descriptor is met.

Gordon