Hello beautiful people,
I just wanted to pick your brain on this one. What is the most common DLA award for someone who is completely blind but has no other mental or physical problems?
My client was on a lifetime award of HR care and LR mob, then some genius advised him to put in a change of circs. to try to get HR mob and guess what? The care was lowered to low and he didn't get the higher rate mob!
I'm hopeful I can get him MR care with LR mob on appeal even though it won't be easy but I was just wondering what, in your experience, was the typical award for this sort of situation.
Thanks!
Bea

It all depends on the lifestyle of the claimant. I once had a partially sighted client who was serving his time as a store man. He needed help reading part numbers, invoices, etc. LR Care awarded by tribunal. Overturned and MR awarded by commissioner, as was. Later re-awarded on renewal.

More recently, I had a client who spent a lot of time out in the community, had other physical problems as well as a hearing impairment. Mr care awarded without argument at tribunal.

It is also worth arguing on aspiration. In other words, what would a claimant do if help were available: the principle of help to lead a normal life following Fairey/Mallinson. MR care is never automatically ‘in the bag’ as it were. It all depends on the facts of the case and, some of the time, creative argument

Mon 17-May-10 12:31 PM by ros.white

edited to shorten link

Middle rate care depends on showing need for 'frequent attention' in connection with bodily function of seeing, so it's important to include something like a diary to show how often in the average day this need for help arises.
RNIB page on DLA (including a checklist of possible care needs) is here - RNIB page on DLA

alban

That's very useful, thank you for the tips. I'll definitely put emphasis on the "aspiration" argument as he used to be a very active person before losing his sight and now needs to be accompanied anywhere to take part in leisure activities. The only problem I have is that medical evidence does not really help with this case, does it? All his doctor can confirm is that he's completely blind but then how do you PROVE that he needs help moving around indoors, for example, or that he would go to the pub once a week if he had someone to accompany him?

Don't worry about medical evidence other than where it concerns clinical findings. It is the evidence and credibility of the claimant that is most crucial in cases like these. Attention must be reasonably required to live a normal life and that, as the higher courts have repeatedly pointed out, is a matter for the good sense of the tribunal. Also the more recently he lost his sight the less time he has had to adapt.

In appealing against the supersession decision keep a thought for whether grounds for supersession were made out.

If there was no material change in circumstances then that may, of itself, prove sufficient to overturn the decision without getting stuck into the disability tests.

I'd be thinking about having the grounds question heard by a single member Tribunal; you could apply for the two questions to be heard separately; that way you could keep the entitlement question exclusive of the issue of whether there had been a change of circs.

Overriding objective could assist in minimising the expense and complxity of the proceedings if there were a decent argument that there was no change, i.e. still blind...

Just a thought mind.

Great advice, thank you!
I've tried that argument before (that there wasn't a material change to justify the lower award) and I remember I quoted a decision on it.
Can you explain to me what the advantage of asking for a single member Tribunal is? Also do you need to justify the request?

The only evidence I ever ask for is from either an optician or opthalmologist and then I limit to confirmation of diagnosis, visual accuity, field of vision affected and the size of print that the person can read with glasses/magnifiers.

I only do this so that a tribunal has a measure of what the person can or can not see and provide the rest of the information using the RNIB checklist that Alban highlighted. Usually results in a tribunal making a telephone offer rather than having to undergo a full hearing.