UK Social Security and Child Support Commissioners' Decisions

[2001] UKSSCSC CJSA_5944_1999 (08 June 2001)

RJCA/IW/2

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THE SOCIAL SECURITY COMMISSIONERS

Commissioner's Case No: CJSA/5944/1999

SOCIAL SECURITY ACTS 1992- 1998

APPEAL FROM DECISION OF SOCIAL SECURITY APPEAL TRIBUNAL ON A QUESTION OF LAW

DECISION OF THE SOCIAL SECURITY COMMISSIONER

MR COMMISSIONER R J C ANGUS


 


1. The decision of the Social Security Appeal Tribunal dated 6 May 1999 is erroneous in law. I set that decision aside and, as empowered by section 14(8)(a)(i) of the Social Security Act 1998, I give the decision which I consider the tribunal should have given which is:-

The claimant is not to be regarded as available to be employed from 9 January 1999 to 22 January 1999 (inclusive) because –

1. in the weeks ending 15 January 1999 and 22 January 1999 the claimant had restricted his availability for work in accordance with the regulation 7(2) of the Jobseeker's Allowance Regulations 1996 and he did not enter into a varied jobseeker's agreement because a pattern of availability which he had agreed in his Jobseeker's Agreement had changed by virtue of his non-availability because of detention in police custody from 15 January 1999 to 18 January 1999 and, as a result,

2. as provided by regulation 7(3), the claimant was not available for employment in accordance with the pattern that he had agreed in his Jobseeker's Agreement and he cannot be treated as available in the benefit weeks ending on Friday 15 January 1999 and 22 January 1999.

2. The adjudication officer appealed, with the leave of the chairman, against the tribunal's decision that the claimant should be treated as available for work for a total of 40 hours in each of the two weeks from 9 January 1999 to 22 January 1999 as the involuntary restrictions placed on his working [police custody] were not such as to render him unavailable for work for up to 40 hours in each of those 2 weeks.
3. The claimant was in receipt of Jobseeker's Allowance. He had agreed, on 23 April 1998, with an employment officer that he would be available to work between 0 hours to 11.59 hours from Monday to Sunday for a total of 8 hours per day. On 15 January 1999 he was taken into police custody at 10.30 hours and released on 18 January 1999 at 15.00 hours. On his arrest in Warrington on 15 January 1999 he had been told that he would appear in court the next morning in Leigh but was taken to Wigan by mistake and missed his court appearance. He was held in Leigh until Monday 18 January 1999 upon which date he appeared in court at 11.20 hours when his release was ordered. An adjudication officer decided that the claimant was not to be regarded as available to be employed from 9 January 1999 to 22 January 1999 because the effect of his being in police custody from 15 January 1999 to 18 January 1999 was that he had, without prior agreement with an employment officer, restricted his availability for employment to something other than his agreed pattern of availability.
4. The claimant appealed that decision to the Social Security Appeal Tribunal. The tribunal issued a decision in the following terms:-

"The decision of the Adjudication Authority dated 25 January 1999 is revised.

For the weeks between 9/1/99 to 22/1/99 inclusive the appellant was not available for work from 10.30 a.m. on the 15/1/99 to 3 p.m. on 18/1/99. However, he was available for work for a total of 40 hours in both relevant weeks. The involuntary restrictions placed on his working were not such as to render him unavailable for work for up to 40 hours in those 2 weeks.

Summary of grounds

As to the period 18/1/99 to 22/1/99, appellant is to be treated as available for employment under Reg 14(1)(h) JSA Regs. In this case, the man was in prison. It matters not at all whether his cell was in the police station or in a building with a sign on saying H.M. Prison! He was in custody and in this context a prison includes a police cell. Any other interpretation is perverse. In any event he was available to work more than 40 hours a week in both weeks. He was only unavailable for the last part of Friday and much of Monday. The remaining hours are not so unusual or irregular as to render him unavailable for 40 hours work in the 2 material weeks.".

When asked for a written statement of the tribunal's findings in fact and reasons for its decision the chairman stated that there was nothing which needed to be added to the explanation in the notice of decision which I quote above.

5. Regulation 14(1)(h) of the Jobseeker's Regulations 1996 provides, so far as relevant:-

"1. A person, ---- shall be treated as available for employment in the following circumstances for as long as those circumstances apply, subject to any maximum period specified in this paragraph –

----

(h) If he has been discharged from detention in a prison, remand centre or youth custody institution for 1 week commencing with the date of his discharge;

----.".

6. The adjudication officer appealed the tribunal's decision on the grounds that the tribunal had misdirected itself in law in its interpretation of regulation 14(1)(h). In a written submission of 20 September 1999 he argued that the terms of sub-paragraph (h) are specific as to the type of detention establishment from which the claimant in question is to be released. These are a prison, a remand centre or a youth custody institution. In essence his argument is that the words "detention in a prison, remand centre or youth custody institution" do not describe a class of detention establishments which would embrace everything from a prison to the cells in a police station. They identify three specific types of detention establishment and the police station cell is not one of them. The adjudication officer, therefore, invited me to set the tribunal's decision aside and substitute my own decision.
7. By 18 January 2000 the adjudication officer's functions had been transferred to the Secretary of State by section 1 of the Social Security Act 1998. On that date a Legal Officer in the Office of the Social Security Commissioners directed that the Secretary of State's representative should make an additional written submission on the relevance, if any, of Commissioner's decision CJSA/397/1998. That was also a case which concerned a claimant who was taken into police custody during the currency of a claim for Jobseeker's Allowance. In that case the Commissioner thought that the claimant could be assisted by regulation 13 of the Jobseeker's Allowance regulations which, insofar as relevant to his decision, provides:-

"(1) In any week a person may restrict his availability for employment in the following ways, if the circumstances set out apply.

----

(3) A person may restrict his availability in any way providing the restrictions are reasonable in the light of his physical or mental condition.".

The Commissioner decided that in the case which he was considering the claimant's physical condition was that he was in police custody and presumably not free either in practical terms or in legal terms to leave that custody. In those circumstances any restriction on his availability for work was not only reasonable but inevitable. He was therefore exempt from the regulation 7(1) prohibition on restricting the total number of hours of which he was available for employment to less than 40 hours in any week and, consequently, was not prevented by regulation 6(1) from being regarded as available for employment in the relevant week.

8. On 28 January 2000, in response to the Legal Officer's direction, the Secretary of State's representative made a further written submission in which he adhered to the adjudication officer's view that a claimant released from police custody had not been released from prison within the meaning of regulation 14(1)(h) but he submitted also that a decision on the instant case should be postponed until the Court of Appeal had heard the appeal against the decision in CJSA/397/98. The Legal Officer issued a further direction staying the determination of this appeal until the Court of Appeal's decision would be issued.
9. On 15 December 2000 the Court of Appeal, in the case of the Secretary of State for Social Security v. David held that CJSA/397/98 had been wrongly decided. In the Court's view the reference to the claimant's "physical or mental condition" in regulation 13(3) was clearly confined to some personal disability. Regulation 13(3), does not, therefore, assist the claimant in this case. That brings me back to the interpretation of regulation 14(1)(h). The claimant, who is unrepresented, has offered no argument in contradiction of the submissions by the former adjudication officer and the Secretary of State's representative that sub-paragraph (h) of regulation 14(1) cannot be interpreted as setting out a class of detention establishments which includes a police cell. That, of course, does not absolve me from the duty of considering whether or not those submissions are correct.
10. I sympathise with the tribunal's view that for all practical purposes this claimant was available for employment during the course of the normal working week but I have come to the conclusion that the submission by the adjudication officer is correct and the wording of sub-paragraph (h) is not apt to describe class of detention establishments which would include the cells in a police station. My reasoning is slightly different from what I understand to be the adjudication officer's and the Secretary of State's representative's reasoning.
11. It seems to me that the three establishments specified in sub-paragraph (h) are all establishments to which a person can be committed by the Court to await further court procedures or to serve a custodial sentence. Detention in one of those establishments, whether on sentence or on remand, can be prolonged. Detention in a police cell, however, is normally temporary pending charge and the first appearance in court and is normally for not more than 48 hours. Therefore to my mind the police cell is not an establishment in the same genus as the establishments specified in sub-paragraph (h) and regulation 14(1) does not assist the claimant.
12. For the foregoing reasons the appeal succeeds and my decision is in paragraph 1 above.

(Signed) R J C Angus

Commissioner

(Date) 6 June 2001