Activity 10 - making budgeting decisions

Can’t find any specific case law on this one, was wondering if anyone else had come up against it.

I have several clients with neurodiversity disabilities (e.g. autism, ADHD) who don’t have intellectual or learning disabilities. They’re in a weird position with this descriptor where they’re technically able to e.g. make a household budget, intellectually understand the maths involved in budgeting decisions, but due to impulse control and executive function difficulties are not able to then actually stick to the budgets - often maxing out credit cards, taking out loans, spending money on impulse purchases and then ending up with not enough to buy any food or pay rent, etc. Without fail the DWP use the ability to understand the finances involved *at the point of looking at them* to say that no points are relevant, whereas what I’m wondering is whether the descriptor could cover the wider activity of actually *managing* the budget - basically, at what point the decisions have to be made. If the DWP interpretation is correct, I accept my clients aren’t entitled, in that they’re able to ‘make complex budgeting decisions’ when drawing up a budget, but I would argue they ‘need prompting or assistance to make complex budgeting decisions’ at the point that they’re actually choosing whether or not to buy something.

We’ve had one case go to first tier tribunal and lose, still waiting for the statement of reasons to be able to have a look through this, but I can’t find any case law on the budgeting at all. Any ideas?

Meg

To me, the obvious place to start would be with carrying our an activity reliably, see CPAG 2016/17, p.730 which covers this in more depth, but I think it is certainly arguable that your clients can’t do their budgeting to an acceptable standard.

Indeed, CPAG at p.727 also notes that “It is arguable that you need help with complex budgeting decisions if you cannot understand the implications of spending all your money as soon as you get it.” which would seem to be the case here.

I agree with Paul. It isn’t a great deal of help, but activity 10 is mentioned briefly in this decision (the only one that I am aware of): http://www.osscsc.gov.uk/Aspx/view.aspx?id=4693 The comments (para 35) are strictly obiter but suggest that intellectual ability to do calculations is not the end of the matter.

The DWP ‘descriptor log’ which keeps appearing and disappearing at the end of chapter P2 of the ADM (it has currently disappeared again) is not a statement of law, but can indicate what the Department might argue at the UT. This is from the Jan 2016 version, and seems relevant despite the heading being ‘mental health’:
‘Would someone’s mental health affect their ability to make a budgeting decision?
A mental health condition may affect a person’s ability to make complex budgeting decisions. Complex budgeting decisions are not just a string of simple sums, but the ability to respond appropriately to changing circumstances and events, as income and outgoings change, new demands are made, new things become priorities etc. This ability to respond to events makes this descriptor quite different. Because of this, conditions such as depression can have an impact if they mean that the person is unable to respond to these changing circumstances and demands.
You should look at the decision making process itself. Does the claimant understand that the bill must be paid and how that will affect their other finances, if they need to make adjustments to their spending elsewhere, or need to ask for extra time to pay? Do they understand that money must last a period of time, and be parcelled out over that period in order that it lasts until the next piece of income arrives, and do they have the ability to do that?
So, an example of someone who needs prompting/assistance to manage complex budgeting decisions may be where a claimant can manage day to day simple budgeting decisions, e.g. when food shopping, buying clothes etc. but not longer term finances.
This activity does not take in to account a person’s choices around budgeting, but simply their functional ability. So if a person spends all their money at the start of the month and cannot prioritise spending, this must be due to a health condition in order to score points.’

I have two cases at UTT re. budgeting but the issue in both of them is the difference between simple and complex budgeting decisions, or that the ability to spend money and arrange loans is not the same as making complex budgeting decisions.

Usually we have been successful arguing the case for complex budgeting decisions with a variety of mental health conditions from anxiety & depression to psychosis, as well as brain injuries/LD, etc. It is often relatively easy to evidence that someone has got debts, does not handle these very well, they increase and become more unmanageable, client buries head in sand… Generally easier to win this point at tribunal than assessment/decision in my experience though.

Cheers, I thought it would be pretty unreasonable not to count the kind of issues my clients have, but then there have been some disappointing refusals in terms of ‘extending’ the definitions previously so it’s hard to know what’s likely to be taken into account sometimes! Also related - I’m glad you mentioned bits of the ADM being taken offline, I check it sometimes to find things missing and then am never 100% sure if I spotted them there, or somewhere else, or possibly imagined them!

I’ve had a recent UT case in which this was an issue, but because I won on several other grounds the judge’s treatment of it was no more than cursory. She highlighted “intellectual capacity” to make budgeting decisions, but I think as a matter of law she was plainly wrong if she intended to limit Activity 10 in that way, and she probably didn’t. It just reads as if she was in a hurry to finish.

You might find a degree of help in PR v SSWP [2015] UKUT 0584 (AAC), a decision of UT Judge Mark, especially at paragraph 35: “However intellectual the claimant may have been…”

I also found the DWP’s own PIP Assessment Guide useful (version dated 28 July 2015 in my case). Page 113 and the part about planning future purchases might well be applicable to your clients.

I am going to FtT with a 17yr old , with Asperger’s, he told the Atos HCP that if he is given money he goes to the Record Shop and buys Rock records, and can look for cheaper ones to get more, this type of music is his obsession, he has little or no interest in anything else. it was then explained if he is asked to help with the household bills, or money isn’t available to Buy records or guitar strings he throws a wobbler, as he cannot understand the complex stuff like, bills, clothing, travel cost.

Unfortunately the (General Nurse) HCP just dismissed his budgeting issues as nothing more than any other teenager. The disability awareness of the HCP is appalling. finally he had been on DLA MR Care + LR Mob for a number of years, but now he is well.

On the plus side this isn’t the first we have dealt with Autistic DLA claimants being refused PIP, but the FtT often awards them even higher levels of PIP than their DLA.

That sounds so very familiar Neil.

I think I posted fairly recently about one of my clients- a young person with a significant learning difficulty- who was refused PIP on migration from DLA. He has attended special needs schools throughout his education which the HCP used as evidence he could manage complex budgeting decisions (I think she genuinely had no idea what ‘special needs’ signified). The HCP also asked him if he could travel to school on his own and despite him telling her the school was 500 miles away and he could walk there every day she decided he had no difficulties in planning or following a journey. You really couldn’t make it up could you?