Postponement request- reasonable?

As I think we’re going to come across this more often I thought I would run it by you and see what your opinions are.

Our local TS venue is Reading. However, due to the backlog in listing, TS has very recently taken to farming out some of the Reading appeals to another venue (in another town some 25 miles away). This is presenting difficulties for clients for whom travelling is an issue, but who opted for oral hearings on the basis that they would only have to travel a short distance to a familiar area (town centre) in order to attend. As an example, a client’s ESA appeal has just been listed for the alternative venue. One of her health problems is agoraphobia, to the extent where leaving her house even for a local journey is impossible unless she is accompanied. Even then she will be awake all night before-hand psyching herself up to make the journey and her anxiety is such that for the duration of her trip she cannot be far from a toilet due to nausea, etc. This was all documented in the sub we prepared for her and backed up by medical evidence (all of which has been circulated by TS). The journey to the alternative venue, which would involve a bus and train journey as well as having to negotiate an unfamiliar route, will be quite impossible for her.

Postponement request has been made and I am awaiting response. However, the is at least the third similar request we have made in recent weeks and one such request has already been refused (though later agreed following second request). I’m concerned that TS will take the stance that it is reasonable for appellants to travel an acceptable distance to attend a hearing and therefore refuse to postpone. Obviously, I understand that many appellants aren’t lucky enough to live adjacent to their local venue but on the other hand, our clients ‘signed up’ to an oral hearing under the reasonable expectation that they wouldn’t have to travel (we’re now specifying when the alternative venue isn’t appropriate on the enquiry form).

So- is it reasonable? Would I have good grounds for set-aside request if postponement is refused and appeal fails?

We faced a similar problem when the facilities at our local tribunal venue were held to be unsuitable, and all our appeals were moved to the next nearest venue which is also about 25 miles away.  A particular issue is that the bus station is at least a ten-minute walk from the venue.

Slightly to our surprise, we find Tribunals Service relatively accommodating in agreeing to pay for a door-to-door taxi service in appropriate cases.

If your alternative venue is, as I suspect, Aldershot, then it would indeed be a bugger to get to from Reading by public transport. It’s bad enough from Basingstoke, which is only 17 miles away - you have to go via Woking (train) or Camberley (bus) and it would take more than an hour.

Touch wood, none of our clients have been sent to Aldershot yet - they’re all in Reading (nice and easy on the train).

Hi Ariadne,

It’s Maidenhead, actually, which at least involves no changes by train. However, it is a bit of a walk from the station to the venue and for most of our clients, the journey involves a bus journey into town as well as a walk from town to the station before catching the train.

I suppose we should count ourselves lucky really. I shall persevere with postponment requests where I think it is reasonable but will bear in mind the taxi possibility too.

...However, we now have a situation in which my collegue has two appeals listed for the same day and the same slot- one at Maidenhead and one at Reading… looks like we’re going to have to learn to be in two places at once too!!

So many factors to cover here it’s hard to know where to start so bear with me:

1) TS currently not in the business of allowing postponements. Solely in the business of clearing backlog. Postponement requests being routinely refused which would previously have made the grade.

2) Initial request likely to go before a Clerk. Outcome - inevitable. No limit to the number of requests which can be made so push a second request in and it goes to a DJ. Alternatively, always address your request to a DJ. Clerks very uncomfortable intervening in those instances. DJ outcomes generally positive although still a tendency to proceed just to get a feel for what the lie of the land really is.

3) Review your postponement letters. I’ve seen staff kick off at postponement refusals and then gone back to see what they wrote only to be horrified by the cursory nature of it. Almost assuming that the case for postponement is so blindingly obvious no sane person would deny it.

In particular I have always made it a matter of routine to explain in tedious detail just why I (or another staff member) will be representing the appellant and why fixed commitments for others staff (advice sessions for example) make it impractical for others to step in and represent. Equally good arguments include the defined nature of specific roles e.g. a case allocated to a specialist Mental Health WRO could be allocated to someone else but funding streams for other specialist posts may exclude that as an option e.g. if the DAAT are funding a post will they allow the worker they pay for to pick up mental health stuff and so on.

The argument that stuff is in the appeal papers isn’t a goer. If it ain’t in the postponement letter then it isn’t known and the only way to make it known is to spell it out in that one place.

4) Double booking - ah joy. 25 years later and it still happens. Tech and the TS are generally alien concepts. They’re moving closer together (perhaps we’re up to the 19th century by now) but this still happens. Basically, all of the above goes into the postponement and you crosses your fingers and hope. Even when there was not a hope of another rep being available and I have detailed exhaustive efforts to blackmail colleagues and staff I manage alike I have seen cases still go ahead without the rep as the tribunal have previewed and concluded they could determine the case without me. Generally, much as it grieves me to say it, they were right and the cases were won.

TS Brum are generally helpful on trying to avoid double listing of reps (there are 2 hearing rooms at Oxford) if our organisation is noted as rep. They will also avoid listing on specific dates if notified reasonably far in advance and will agree to list all rep’t. cases one after the other in a particular session to avoid reps ‘hanging around’ between cases. Of course like any administration this dosen’t work 100%.

It might be helpful to discuss these issues with the Reading LEAN team at Brum. Is one of the issues that there are different listings clerks for Reading & Maidenhead venues so listings are not co-ordinated?

Just to add to Mike Hughes’s comments:

...  end the request for postponement with “For the reasons given above, a postponement would be in the interests of justice”.

Thanks all. We’ll continue to submit postponement requests on a case by case basis for now and see how it goes.