Forum Home → Discussion → Disability benefits → Thread
Does a (corporate) appointee have to attend an appeal?
PIP appeal, should be straightforward except that corporate appointee feels that it is not an appropriate use of its time to attend (telephone) hearing. Support worker (from same LA) and rep (me) and claimant (schizophrenic, 10 years in supported housing) will be there. Can the hearing go ahead in these circs or will it just get adjourned? I can speak to the appointee about its responsibilities etc, but just wanted to know what tribunal might say if we wanted it to go ahead? Claimant has appointee for reason of unable to manage finances rather than general lack of capacity (drug and alcohol issues).
If I was in your position, I would make a request for direction from the Tribunal.
The whole process for Appelants’ is generally very stressful . I wouldn’t like to put a client in a position where they have the hearing adjourned due to appointee not being present. The Tribunal can of course order the appointee to attend, regardless of whether or not the appointee considers it a waste of their valuable time. If the Tribunal is happy to proceed without them - no problemo
PIP appeal, should be straightforward except that corporate appointee feels that it is not an appropriate use of its time to attend (telephone) hearing. Support worker (from same LA) and rep (me) and claimant (schizophrenic, 10 years in supported housing) will be there. Can the hearing go ahead in these circs or will it just get adjourned? I can speak to the appointee about its responsibilities etc, but just wanted to know what tribunal might say if we wanted it to go ahead? Claimant has appointee for reason of unable to manage finances rather than general lack of capacity (drug and alcohol issues).
Our deputyship team officers who are also corporate appointee attend hearings with our support. Even so we’ve had some weird and wonderful “discussions” with some judges who appear to be continually confused and/or astonished by the appointee process itself. Including one who thought claimants can just choose to have an appointee if they can’t be bothered to manage their benefits themselves. For that alone it’s pretty essential to have the appointee attend.
I am aware of the huge amount of work deputyship/corporate appointeeship creates - it’s rarely only about managing benefits - and how pushed our team is, so I understand why this person may feel it’s not the best use of their time. I wouldn’t want to attend without though as they can often answer some of the more left field questions and will have the evidence of the appointment, capacity assessment etc.