House of Commons - Social Security

Select Committee on Social Security Fourth Report

VIII. THE ROLE OF THE DISABILITY LIVING ALLOWANCE ADVISORY BOARD (DLAAB)

74. The Disability Living Allowance Advisory Board (DLAAB) is an independent statutory body established under section 3(1) of Disability Living Allowance and Disability Working Allowance Act 1991.[168] The Board is appointed by the Secretary of State and currently comprises a Chairman and seventeen members drawn from a range of relevant professions. Some of the members are themselves disabled.[169] The Board has three main functions:

— to give advice to the Secretary of State on matters referred by her (our emphasis)

— to give advice to Medical Advisers on cases referred for expert advice

— to present an Annual Report on its activities over the year to the Secretary of State.

In addition the Board holds meetings with organisations of and for people with disabilities and has an educational role.

75. In the year covered by its most recent Annual Report, the full Board met on three occasions, in addition to two DLAAB Workshops held for Adjudication Officers. There were also 193 Small Board sessions which were held to examine "post-promulgation" cases, i.e. cases already decided.[170] The Annual Report includes summaries of the findings of six studies of particular conditions studied by Small Boards, including Down Syndrome, Cystic Fibrosis and Sickle Cell Anaemia.[171] Special Boards were held for medical educational purposes on the assessment of suicidal risk, hypermobility syndrome, Parkinson's Disease and Dementia.[172] The periodical publication of "DLAAB Updates" to bring current medical information to its readers — all Adjudication Officers, non-medical members of Disability Appeal Tribunals and Benefits Agency Medical Advisers — is regarded by the Board as a "success story".[173]

76. The Chairman of DLAAB holds regular meetings with the President of the Independent Tribunal Service, the Chief Social Security and Child Support Commissioner and the Chief Adjudicating Officer as well as civil servants in DSS Policy Group and the Benefits Agency. We recognise the importance of regular contact with those monitoring the standards of decision-taking on DLA. Contact with the Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC) has been established only recently.[174] We recommend that DLAAB should establish closer links with the SSAC. A formal joint meeting at least annually might help to encourage closer informal links so that the undoubted expertise of DLAAB members can be tapped into by the SSAC during its consideration of the Government's proposals for delegated legislation relating to the DLA[175] and its occasional wider reviews of policy in this area.

77. Contact with groups representing people with disabilities has been less satisfactory. DLAAB supplied us with notes of presentations they had received over the past three years on particular conditions from organisations such as the National Association for Colitis and Crohn's disease,[176] but otherwise contact with voluntary organisations appears to have been limited,[177] although representatives of the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) met the full Board in July 1997.[178] Professor Bruce of the RNIB made the Disability Benefits Consortium's position on DLAAB quite clear: "The Advisory Board appears to be opaque, unaccountable, ill-informed and working to terms of reference which are inadequate and working outside those terms of reference".[179] Clearly something needs to be done to improve the level of confidence in DLAAB of the principal organisations representing disabled people. We recommend that DLAAB should give a higher priority to contacts with the voluntary disability organisations in order to gain their confidence and to benefit from their insights on behalf of the DLA customers. We also recommend that DLAAB should be involved in the new Disability Benefits Forum, which we were told is being set up following a meeting between Baroness Hollis of Heigham and the Disability Benefits Consortium.[180] We recommend that the Secretary of State should consult members of the new Disability Benefits Forum before making appointments in the future to DLAAB.

78. We were told that DLAAB had "never been asked to comment in relation to any matter of policy or the question of legislation in relation to DLA".[181] On the other hand, Mrs Nicole Davoud reminded us of the efficiency of unofficial channels of communication: "things filtered through and our role was not as passive as it would appear to have been".[182] Professor Grahame told us that when Baroness Hollis of Heigham invited DLAAB on 2 July 1997[183] to contribute to the debate on the future of DLA, "it was the first opportunity we had to express what we had built up over the last five years which we were not able to express, our fears and misgivings about the running of DLA and AA".[184] We agree with Baroness Hollis that "there is everything to be said for any Minister making use of the expertise that is available".[185] We recommend that the Government should consider how DLAAB could be re-structured to make the best use of its expertise.