A university lecturer with autism and ADHD was wrongly denied disability benefits after being told that using phone alarms and an Amazon Alexa device to help with tasks such as cooking and taking medication was not “out of the ordinary”, a senior judge has ruled.
The anonymous claimant missed out on receiving the Personal Independence Payment (Pip) after a first-tier tribunal determined that her digital devices should not count as disability aids because people without health conditions also use them.
The panel also pointed to the claimant’s job as a mental health nursing lecturer and PhD student as proof she “functions well cognitively”, dismissing arguments that her neurodivergence caused poor executive function, limited working memory, and sensory overload.
In her appeal, the claimant explained that her ADHD severely impairs her memory and motivation, causing her to regularly forget basic tasks. She said that she relies heavily on setting Amazon Alexa smart speaker reminders and phone alarms to prevent food from burning while cooking, prompt herself to eat lunch, and remember to take medication.
Having scored four points out of the eight required for the Pip standard daily living rate – worth £306 a month – the claimant escalated her appeal to the upper tribunal.
Judge Ann Humphrey ruled that the first-tier tribunal had made an error of law by agreeing that everyday household technology should be disqualified as an “aid or appliance”.
Under current caselaw, an aid does not need to be a specialist medical product, Judge Humphrey said. The legal test to be applied is whether a device helps the claimant overcome “functional limitations” caused by their condition, regardless of whether non-disabled people use the same tools.
It was also found that the original panel failed to properly investigate the woman’s use of noise-cancelling headphones to manage auditory processing difficulties and sensory overload when communicating verbally, dismissing her claim because she did not wear conventional hearing aids.
Judge Humphrey set the initial decision aside, remitting the case for a fresh hearing before a different tribunal panel.
Claimed by over four million people across the UK, Pip is designed to assist with the extra living costs incurred by a disability or health condition. However, the assessment process for the benefit has faced widespread criticism from disability rights campaigners, especially for penalising claimants with fluctuating or less visible conditions.
Appeals against Pip decisions that reach the tribunal stage are overturned in favour of the claimant in nearly three-quarters (74 per cent) of cases, The Independent revealed last month. Campaigners argue this highlights a serious issue with the Department for Work and Pension’s (DWP) decision-making process.
Backlogs in the tribunal system have now pushed waiting times for a decision on benefit appeals to an average of nine months, official data shows, with 129,000 cases waiting to be heard by the first-tier tribunal.
Pip is currently at the centre of a review by Sir Stephen Timms, who found earlier this year that the benefit is “not fit for purpose”.
The disability minister’s final recommendations are set to be delivered later this year, when it is expected sweeping changes will be put forward. These could include the replacement of some cash payments with aids or services, an update from the review’s chairs recently revealed.
Their interim report also indicated that the review will propose to improve consistency in DWP decision-making by “learning” from mandatory reconsideration and appeals.
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