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Interaction between descriptor 10 and Descriptor 1 and 2

Bcfu
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Blackpool Centre For Unemployed

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Total Posts: 204

Joined: 9 July 2020

Hi

Not seen this argument before so hoping someone might be able to help. We are appealing to UT for our client who suffers from autism, depression and anxiety.

In the SOR, they make reference to him stating that he eats 4 out of 7 days with regards to Descriptor 1 and 2 (understandable!), however they also raised this in Descriptor 10 rejecting his claim that he will impulsively buy books without thinking about his food and other essentials.

There argument is that he cannot have any money issues as he didn’t raise this in respect of Descriptor 1 and 2… I’m at a loss trying to work out the logic of this one as I’ve previously mentioned money issues in other appeals and been told it is simply not relevant to descriptor 1 or 2.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Elliot Kent
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Shelter

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Joined: 14 July 2014

Obviously if the Judge has said “Mr X is capable of reliably managing his complex budgeting decisions unaided because he eats on more than 50% of days” that is a hopeless non-sequitur and would be an obvious error of law.

I don’t think that is what is going on though. It sounds like your client’s case was based around his claim that he would not buy enough food because he was impulsively spending his money on books and the Tribunal seems to be attempting to deal with that aspect of his argument by reference to its finding that he was eating most of the time. Whereas your client had said that his impulsive spending was undermining his ability to manage his money in a way which meant he had the funds to feed himself, the Tribunal was finding that he did end up buying enough food, such that the impulsive spending was not as extensive a problem as he had claimed.

So the question of one’s ability to eat regularly is not, of itself, relevant to activity 10 but in the context of your client’s specific case, the question of whether he was purchasing enough food had a relevance to his case.

None of this is, of itself, sufficient reasoning to deal with activity 10 but it may or may not form part of an overall cogently reasoned decision. We can’t know without seeing the full SOR to set what the Tribunal actually said in its proper context.