Went to a tribunal this morning - whilst discussing the cooking test, the chairman said that whilst it has to be a conventional cooker that is taken into consideration, the ability or otherwise to use the oven is not. This was in response to our contention that the client would run the risk of burning/scalding trying to lift a roasting tray, due to his poor grip, and propensity to drop things.

The test is the ability to cook a main meal for one's self, and to my mind that means the sort of meal one might do on a sunday - meat, two or three veg - meat is, more often than not, roasted in an oven? After all, a conventional cooker has as an integral part of it an oven.

Is it me, am I falling into the trap of using too much logic here ?

Having had the mobility side thrown out anyway, we will be asking for a statement, but in the meantime I wanted some reassurance (or otherwise) that I was'nt.....

Is this what you are talking about? (NB the follwoing has been taken directly from the derbyshire caselaw pack)

C41/98(DLA)(*4/01) held “it was submitted by each (referring to the claimant’s representative and DWP) that the traditional cooker referred to in R(DLA)2/95 means a cooker with a heated work surface at about waist height under which there is an oven.

I consider that it is far from clear that the Commissioner was referring to anything other than the heated area at waist height on which saucepans are heated. As I have mentioned earlier, it is noteworthy that the work ‘on’ has been used by the Commissioner rather than the work ‘in’ when referring to cooking on a traditional cooker.
Even if the traditional cooker mentioned by the Commissioner would normally have an oven in a position where a person would have to bend down to use it, I consider that ‘the cooking test’ does not necessarily pre-suppose the use of a low level oven. I agree with Mrs Commissioner Heggs that “it is all a question of what is reasonable in the circumstances of the case”.

I consider that Mr Commissioner Rowland was correct in … CDLA/17329/96 in coming to the conclusion that, as long as a reasonable variety of meals that can be prepared by a claimant, the range need not be unlimited. It seems to me that the tribunal was coming to a reasonable conclusion in all the circumstances by holding in this particular case that it was not necessary to use an oven in order to prepare a cooked main meal.”

I'm not sure that the cooking test is satisfied if it is solely an inability to use an oven that is the problem - CDLA/5686/1999:

"14. The Secretary of State's written submission also suggested that the "cooking test" necessarily involved the use of an oven, but, as was conceded in the claimant's grounds of appeal, the Commissioner who decided R(DLA) 2/95 has held that not to be so (CDLA/1469/95). Mr Rutledge submitted that the test was intended to be a test of, among other things, bending. I disagree. No doubt, in the many cases where it is considered reasonable for a claimant to use a conventional oven at a conventional height the test will involve a test of bending, but that is not necessarily so. The legislation makes provision for a test of preparing a meal and, if it is reasonable to expect a claimant to prepare a meal without bending, it is unnecessary to consider his capacity to bend. Mr Rutledge suggested that statements in Parliament supported his view and he referred me what was said by the Minister of State in the House of Lords (HL Vol. 526, col. 1546). Similar statements were made by the Secretary of State in the House of Commons (HC Vol. 181, col. 313). I do not consider that there is any ambiguity in the legislation such as would entitle me to have regard to what was said in Parliament (Pepper v. Hart <1993> AC 593) but, in any event, I do not consider that the Parliamentary statements support Mr Rutledge's case. The cooking test was said to be "abstract", in the sense that people would not be excluded merely because they would not in practice ever have wished to cook for themselves, and it was said to be intended to be amenable to self-assessment. Nothing was said about deeming people to be unable to prepare a main meal when in fact they could do so by using special devices or stratagems."

But mightn't your client's poor grip and propensity to drop things result in problems with other aspects of cooking and preparing food?

We were arguing along those lines with regard to picking a saucepan of the cooker etc, but part of what we were pointing out was that there would also be a risk of his dropping a roasting try when taking out of the oven due to his suspect grip...that's the point when the Chair made his remarks.

...and fried food is bad for you.

Surprising as it may seem, there are many other ways of cooking food beside frying it - or you can stir-fry it in one of the vegetable oils which is low in cholesterol...

I've always thought that the cooking test was essentially an example of a moderately complex task which has both physical and cognitive elements to it: peeling, chopping, filling pans, handling hot pans, stirring, serving up food on the one hand; and planning and executing the preparation in the right sort of sequence, the right way, and recognising how long it all takes (unlike an American girl I once knew, who decided to cook us a Thanksgiving dinner including the turkey and veg, but the first thing she did was to make the gravy which was so thick you had to spoon it out of the jug - and she wasn't disabled either!)

I regularly cook for myself alone, and hardly ever use the oven to do so. One or sometimes two pans is all I use.

I once came across a man who was ethnic Chinese (and a former chef). His big problem was all the chopping and also steadying the wok with one hand while stirring with the other. He satisfied the cooking test at appeal.