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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Decision making and appeals  →  Thread

HMCTS to stop hearing most Social Security appeals?

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Dan_Manville
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I have heard a fairly reliable rumour that Birmingham ASC has been instructed to withhold hearing appeals other that 01 (Judge sitting alone) hearings for the foreseeable future.

I am told the most clerks have been redeployed to other jurisdictions over the last few weeks.

Can anyone put any flesh on these bones?

nottsadvisor
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Can’t comment on your rumour, but I would imagine the number of disability benefits cases awaiting hearings will have dropped off sharply as they clear the DLA backlog, since hardly any PIP decisions are being made for people to challenege, and those that are being made have to go through the MR process before they get to AS.  So it would make sense for clerks who would normally be dealing with those appeals to get put onto other work for now.

Dan_Manville
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Should’ve said I meant the outdoor clerks who deal with the hearings

Gareth Morgan
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I was talking to a UT judge on Friday who’ve said they had a couple hundred salaried judges drumming their fingers at the moment.  Perhaps they are making use of them?

[ Edited: 15 Apr 2014 at 10:30 am by Gareth Morgan ]
Dan_Manville
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In sunny Wolvo we’ve only got 5 sessions listed next month so I don’t think that’s the case; apparently a few part time salaried Judges have resigned recently round here due to the dearth of work while the full timers are keeping busy on Child Support work.

I can;t help but sense something is about to go orribly wrong.

Ruth_T
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The situation appears to be different in different areas.  We currently have an 18 month wait (from decision to oral hearing) for DLA appeals and just over a year for ESA appeals, so there are hundreds still in the pipeline.

I was told at the end of March that changes were afoot, but some of the outdoor clerks were still waiting to find out their new roles.  Apparently some Court staff are being trained as tribunal clerks.

Dan_Manville
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Ruth_T - 14 April 2014 07:45 PM

The situation appears to be different in different areas.  We currently have an 18 month wait (from decision to oral hearing) for DLA appeals and just over a year for ESA appeals, so there are hundreds still in the pipeline.

I was told at the end of March that changes were afoot, but some of the outdoor clerks were still waiting to find out their new roles.  Apparently some Court staff are being trained as tribunal clerks.

We’ve still got loads in the pipeplie, however there’s nothing listed bar 01 appeals in the next few weeks; they’re not hearing the appeals so it would seem, they’re just sitting on them.

Mike Hughes
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So much going on it’s hard to know where to begin.

North West clues began to emerge some months back when domiciliary hearings were refused in all cases in defiance of all logic. Easier to get a PIP decision than a domiciliary.

Then you have the O’Brien case, which last year awarded rather costly judicial pensions to part-time judges. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ministry-of-justice-statement-in-fee-paid-judicial-cases. Not a lot of money left for tribunals after that I would imagine.

That will also impact on the cost of us all being pesky and asking for written reasons too if you read through that link. Again, not much left in the coffers after that. Indeed, a significant deficit I would guess.

In light of this you can see why the MoJ might have been keen to announce one off payments to finally sort the IT and move to as many paper hearings as they can as fast as they can. You might also conclude that a lull in hearings that might drive away some part-timers who need an income would also serve the MoJ well.

I will take my “hardened cynic” hat off in a moment, but not just yet.

Clearly, politically it would be unacceptable for mandatory reconsiderations to be introduced and to not have a drop in appeal hearings. The official TS line is that this alone explains why hearing numbers have dropped. I have only one word for this and I’d best not write it here. The numbers do not match.

Transfer of clerks from TS to employ of the Court Service could be politely said to have not gone well and I’m sure the departure of a number of them for lack of hearings would be helpful in some small way. Indications in the North West suggest they’ve not all been hauled back to Liverpool to chip in at a time of need. Indeed, from personal experience I can only say that administrative competence at Liverpool is at an all time 3 decade low. Never seen anything like it.

Also hearing of stacking in some areas and a dearth in others so the picture is, as has already been said, not consistent. The TS and inconsistency! Who’d have thought 😊

Now, how many more possible explanations for the TS abandoning the oft quoted Nick Warren line of “Justice delayed is no justice at all” do you need? 😊

1964
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Wise words Mike, and I fear all too true.

I suppose we just need to watch this space really and hope it isn’t a train crash in slow motion.

Steve_h
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Well I have heard that County Court clerks will be trained to do the role of tribunal clerks in the near future, so at venues where there is a county court and tribunal hearings in the same building there will be no need for tribunal clerks to attend
the court clerks do not like this idea one bit.
So I think that the whole system will be undergoing a massive overhaul in the coming months and this could be another reason why TAS are stockpiling appeals.

Mike Hughes
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“Transfer of clerks from TS to employ of the Court Service could be politely said to have not gone well and I’m sure the departure of a number of them for lack of hearings would be helpful in some small way. Indications in the North West suggest they’ve not all been hauled back to Liverpool to chip in at a time of need. Indeed, from personal experience I can only say that administrative competence at Liverpool is at an all time 3 decade low. Never seen anything like it.”

“Well I have heard that County Court clerks will be trained to do the role of tribunal clerks in the near future, so at venues where there is a county court and tribunal hearings in the same building there will be no need for tribunal clerks to attend
the court clerks do not like this idea one bit.”.

That’s what I was talking about Steve. People who’ve never drafted a decision, or apparently even used a PC in some cases, now happily bringing a tribunal venue to a grinding halt somewhere near you as a speak. Add on, on average, around 15 to 20 minutes for the time you’re going to be spending in tribunal venues thinking that your tribunal is agonising over a decision whereas really it’s a Court Service clerk agonsing over where the “N” and “o” keys are 😊

What really hasn’t been thought through on much of this is the sharing of venues. The Court Service assumes everything can take place in a court. It probably can, but the issue it throws up is the provision of appropriate waiting areas. Already had a 75 year old sharing the waiting area with everyone associated with a child abuse case. That can only get worse.

 

nevip
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And, the county court in Liverpool can be a mad house at the best of times.  Not good for people who get panic attacks in noisy spaces full of people.

Peter Turville
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Contacts at HMCTS say there are no changes afoot within Birmingham ASC region (e.g. training of court clerks for tribunal work or visa versa). Perhaps there are some initiatives in other regions where there are shared court and tribunal venues?

Birmingham do report a significant downturn in the number of appeal lodgements since MR was introduced or is this just a factor of the inevitable delay before decisions go through MR before reaching the appeal stage (and get through the growing admin. nightmare that is HMCTS Bradford Direct Lodgement)?

Paul_Treloar
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At a recent London/SE TUG meeting, we were told that:

• Overall, drastic reduction in number of appeals.
• First six months of 2012/13: approx. 37,000 cases
• Second six months of 2012/13: approx. 15,000 cases
• March 2014: approx. 1000 cases
• “Live load”: down from 32,000 (last year) to 14,000 presently

This was put down to MR and slow down in ESA migration cases.

Mike Hughes
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“Clearly, politically it would be unacceptable for mandatory reconsiderations to be introduced and to not have a drop in appeal hearings. The official TS line is that this alone explains why hearing numbers have dropped. I have only one word for this and I’d best not write it here. The numbers do not match.”

As previously…

Politically we enter an election period with welfare reform being a key battleground. Having PIP up and running by the end of this year will be a big win. Showing that the number of benefit recipients is down will be another, regardless of whether they have gone into work or not. So, introducing mandatory reconsiderations AND not letting matters proceed to appeal takes huge numbers off the lists of sick and unemployed.

I think you know the language of this by now so let’s not get boring. They’ve run out of money thanks to O’Brien and it suits the powers that be to not find any as the political message can then be wholly positive.

Dan_Manville
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Hows that for flesh? Shame it’s a corpse really.

The other worry is that in a year of minimal funding there’s now a flagging amout of work for the likes of us at a time when we most need to justify our existence.

Thanks Mike