CIS 671 1992
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judge | Mr R. A. Sanders |
| Judgment Date | 19 March 1993 |
| Court | Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber) |
| Docket Number | CIS 671 1992 |
| Subject Matter | Members of a household |
RAS/SH/l
Commissioner's File CIS/671/1992
SOCIAL SEC URITY ACT 1986
SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION ACT 1992
APPEAL FROM DECISION OF SOCIAL SEC URITY APPEAL TRIBU NAL ON A
QUESTION O LAW
DECISION OF THE SOCIAL SECURITY COMMISSIONER
Name:
Social Security Appeal Tribunal:
Case No: C
[ORAL HEARING]
1. Mr now 80 years old, and his wife who is I think two years younger, both suffer from senile dementia. They are both incapable of managing their own affairs or of looking after themselves in their own home; nor is it possible for the family to provide the care and supervision which they both require. Mr was discharged from hospital following a stroke in April 1991 and he and his wife were then moved to a home for the mentally ill' 's Rest some at , where they. could be properly looked after. It is said that there are or were at the time 11 other very disturbed people in the Home. Now the extent of their senility is such that though Mr and Mrs have a sense of recognition of each other as familiars they do not comprehend that they are husband and wife. Nevertheless it was thought that, as there was a room for two available, it would be nice for the to have that room. So there they were put. No one else sleeps in the room but it appears that the others in the home wander in and out more or less as they please. The are each billed separately by the Home for the charges.
2. On 6 November 1991 Mr 's daughter-in-law who, because of his incapacity had beer. appointed by the Secretary of State to act on his behalf in matters of social security, made a claim for him for income support. Now section 22(5) of the Social Security Act 1986 provides that -
“(5) Where a person claiming an income-related benefit ,s a member of a family, the income and capital j of any member. of Ehat family shall except _n prescribed circumstances, be treated as the income and capital of that person."
' family" is, so far as relevant, defined by section 20 of the Actas "a married or unmarried couple". And "married couple" ' is defined, by the same section as meaning "a man and woman who are married to each other and are members of the same household".
An adjudication. officer turned down Mr 's claim because his capital resources when aggregated with those of his wife exceeded the prescribed maximum by about :.3,000. Mr appealed to the tribunal and won, the tribunal concluding that in the circumstances to which I have referred the Gilfillans were not "members of the same household" and therefore their resources did not fall to be aggregated. The adjudication officer now appeals to the Commissioner. At the hearing of the appeal. he was represented by Mr L Scoon of the Solicitor's Office, Departments of Health and Social Security. The claimant did not appear and was not represented.
3. It is appropriate at this point to refer to the findings of fact made by the tribunal and the reasons they gave for their decision. Their findings were:
"Mr. and Mrs. are both patients in 's Rest Home which caters for the elderly mentally ill. They share a room but have no furniture of their own and there is little or no privacy as in addition to staff other patients wander in and out at will. Also there is no normal basis of a household in terms that neither husband or wife have any control over their accommodation or affairs and neither do they have the relationship of man and wife in the normal conception of that description. They have between them capital of L11,000.00."
And the reasons they gave were -
"Claims have been made for Income Support on behalf of both Mr:. and Mrs. but this appeal relates to the claim of Mr. and its refusal on the grounds that Mr. and Mrs. as a married couple have between. them joint savings of -£11,0000.00 so that if they are members of the same household then they will come with-in the description and effect of Section 20(11) of the Social Security Act 1986. In support of this contention it is accented that the couple occupy the same room in the same Rest Home but that apart ' all other attributes of householders are miss'-::g. They occupy this particular accommodation. because they were placed there by their family, they are both mentally handicapped as a result of illness/age and have little or no control over their affairs, they have no exclusive rights of occupation of their accommodation and they do not run or control their
living space. Sadly they do not even recognise each other as man and wife but Simply as another person who is familiar. They are not members of the. same or any other household."
There is no definition of " household" to the legislation and whether or not persons who live in the same place do so as members of a household or the same household is very much a question of fact seeRLSB 4/83, Simons v Pizzey (1997) 2 ALL ER 432 an a London Borough of Hackney v Ezedinma ( 1981 ) 3 All ER 438. I should say that there are reported and unreported decisions on "household" both in relation to supplementary benefit and income support but while they consider whether persons are in their own or in someone else's household they do not, as it seems to me, throw much or any light on the essential meaning of that term. Simmons v. Pizzey (H.R.) does. That case concerned the Chiswick Women's Aid, a charity which provided a house of temporary refuge for battered women and their children. The occupants or the house lived communally, sleeping in dormitories and contributing to a common fund for food and other...
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