NK v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions

Mobility descriptor 1d concerns a claimant’s ability to navigate and keep to the route of an unfamiliar journey. It does not extend to separate difficulties encountered during the journey, such as asking others for directions or coping with crowds.

For the mobility component, Welfare Reform Act 2012, section 79 covers a genuine limitation on moving around caused by somatic symptoms. The relevant factual question is whether the claimant genuinely experiences pain that limits mobility, irrespective of whether its origin is physical or somatic.

A tribunal’s failure expressly to address the 50% rule will not be material where its findings and the evidence establish that the relevant distance can be mobilised for more than 50% of the time.

The claimant appealed against a First-tier Tribunal decision of 11 May 2015. The tribunal had awarded the enhanced-rate daily living component of Personal Independence Payment, but refused the mobility component.

She contended that the tribunal had inadequately considered her mental-health difficulties when assessing an unfamiliar journey. She also contended that her somatic pain limited her ability to move around and that the tribunal had given inadequate reasons. Permission was granted to appeal to the Upper Tribunal.

The central issues were the scope of mobility descriptor 1d, whether genuine somatic symptoms may be considered under mobility activity 2, and whether the tribunal had made a material error of law.

1. Appeal dismissed. The First-tier Tribunal had not made a material error of law.

2. Mobility descriptor 1d in Part 3 of Schedule 1 to the Social Security (Personal Independence Payment) Regulations 2013 concerns navigation along the route of an unfamiliar journey. Following the reasoning in HL v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2015] UKUT 0694 (AAC), the descriptor excludes other difficulties encountered during a journey, including personal interactions required to ask for directions. The tribunal’s failure to investigate how the claimant would seek such help was therefore immaterial.

3. The tribunal had not considered descriptors 1b or 1e, or whether overwhelming psychological distress prevented navigation. However, there was no evidence that the claimant met any of those descriptions. That omission was not material.

4. Section 79 of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 requires that the ability to carry out mobility activities be limited by a physical or mental condition. Nothing in that provision, the 2013 Regulations, or mobility activity 2 excludes symptoms with a somatic origin. If pain is genuinely experienced and limits the claimant’s ability to move around, activity 2 must be considered. Whether symptoms are genuinely experienced is a factual question for the tribunal.

5. Here, the tribunal accepted that the claimant’s somatic symptoms were genuine. It was nevertheless entitled to find that she could mobilise more than 200 metres unaided, having regard to her frequent journeys to the shops and library and her walk from Pimlico to Putney. Its failure expressly to analyse each distance or regulation 7 was not material, since the evidence supported mobility at that distance for more than 50% of the time.

6. The tribunal was not required to adjourn for further medical evidence. There was no indication that the absence of such evidence hindered its determination.

• Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber): appeal dismissed. The First-tier Tribunal’s decision of 11 May 2015 involved no material error of law.
• First-tier Tribunal: allowed the claimant’s appeal against the decision of 6 October 2014 only to award the enhanced-rate daily living component of Personal Independence Payment; it upheld the refusal of the mobility component.