The Appeals Service is crap. Without revealing any names, I went to a tribunal today with a client who was refused Disability Living Allowance (DLA) at the middle rate of the care component and the lower rate of the mobility component.

Now, ordinarily we do not represent clients at tribunal, simply because we don’t have the Community Legal Service Quality Mark at Level 3, only at Level 2. But in this case, repeated attempts to request a postponement so that we can gather more evidence and refer to the Free Representation Unit for a representative were not granted, and in the end, they indicated that the decision to postpone would be made at the tribunal hearing.

After it took 2 hours to get there this afternoon for a 3pm hearing, we discovered that the BSL/English Interpreter hadn’t turned up, and the Clerk had been trying to ring both my client and I (even though we’re both Deaf) to tell us that we do not need to attend the hearing as the tribunal panel had decided to consider the decision on the papers submitted. They decided to award the client with MR care and LR mobility. So that was a complete waste of time, even though we’d achieved the desired result.

If the DWP had made the correct decision in the first place, if the Appeals Service had granted a postponement or at least had the common sense to actually contact Deaf people in the correct manner, then it wouldn’t have been such a waste of time! This week was meant to be my catch-up week, but because of the incompetence of the DWP/Appeals Service, I ended up having to give up an afternoon of casework work.

In October 2004, the Employment Tribunal has produced a Guidance for tribunal users who are deaf or hard of hearing.

The Guidance can also be downloaded from Employment Tribunals Online website, spefically here.

Firstly, the title of the document implies that the interpreter is there for Deaf people only, and does not acknowledge the two way process of interpreting, and the fact that an interpreter is for the benefit of both parties.

Secondly, a rather worrying statement from the document:

Many deaf people have a friend or relative who interprets for them. If you want them to translate for you, the chairman must be satisfied that your friend or relative can accurately translate what you are saying and what is being said to you.

Whilst this paragraph recognises that there may be some fault in using a member of the family or a friend, unless the Chair is familiar with

a) translation / interpreting issues;
b) is able to operate within two languages and is familiar with two cultures;

how are they best placed to judge this situation? In addition, will they be aware that the knowledge of a language does not qualify one to interpret, and possibly introduce bias to the proceedings? Will they be familiar with language and interpreting structures?

Last week, I received the following:

It is unbelievable in 2004, that such attitudes exist within the Tribunal Service. What is more worrying, that certain Deaf people would say yes to such requests, and take along a family member to “interpret” for them. They will do this, sometimes to give themselves a false sense of security, they are not aware of their rights, the implications of using unqualified interpreters or what makes interpreting stand out as a profession.

For those people reading this, the Tribunal Service is responsible for booking such services, and for any costs incurred. These should not be passed onto either party.

The tribunal is potentially breaching the Disability Discrimination Act, if it went ahead and used a family member, friend or colleague. Particular note is drawn to s.19 and s.21.

Please note that interpreting is a specialised profession, and just because a person is able to sign, does not mean they are qualified to interpret.

If a tribunal’s administration systems come up with such suggestions, and they are not able to pick up the implications of what they are suggesting; for example, how this flies in the face of natural justice, then I do have grave concerns regarding the tribunal being able to assess fairly, any disability discrimination claim put before it.

Making such a suggestion, they are not following the Council on Tribunals‘ guidance, produced jointly with the Disability Rights Commission in 2002: Making Tribunals Accessible for Disabled People: Guidance on Applying the Disability Discrimination Act

Secondly, the relevant Code of Practice under the DDA.

Thirdly, a Guidance on Providing British Sign Language / English Interpreters under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 has been produced, which specifically will address Deaf people’s access to service providers, amongst other things.

There is also a shorter Quick Reference Guide of the same document, highlighting the duty to provide interpreters.

A BSL version of the same document can be found here.

Tribunal Services everywhere, please take note.