Hi everyone

I have read through both CSDLA/80/1996 and CSDLA/725/2004 concerning the issue of motivation to cook a main meal. Important parts from CSDLA/80/1996 are listed below. I understand that the lack of motivation must come from the disability. I also understand that the lack of motivation must be so great that it must prevent the main meal ever being able to be prepared.

What I am a bit confused about is how to distinguish between a lack of motivation and the client choosing not to cook the main meal in practice.

He submitted that when it came to mental disability, the question was more concerned with choice. As I understood it, his submission was that this claimant's psycho-neurosis had led to a lack of motivation; that lack of motivation was not a matter of choice by the claimant.

8. The other aspect is what the lack of motivation might demonstrate. In a physical disability case, it might be said that arthritis prevented performance of certain of the tasks necessary to preparation of a main meal.

Equally, I consider, if it could be shown what the lack of motivation resulted in, by way of preventing the same preparation, then the test might be satisfied. The relevant questions concern whether the psycho-neurosis induced lack of motivation prevented this claimant from even approaching the provided ingredients or, for example, having done the preparation whether his motivation tended to lag and fail so that the ingredients would never be cooked. I think a determination about any such link is of critical importance. It was suggested to me by a passage in the evidence before the tribunal but contained only in the written claim pack - at document 59 of the bundle. It is not referred to in any way by the tribunal. The claimant there was recorded as saying in response to a question about what help would be needed if he tried to prepare a cooked main meal for himself this -

"Most days I am unable to cook for myself as I am too frightened to use the cooker."

thanks