Experience

Greater Manchester Law Centre

• United Kingdom
• Legal Services
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Welfare Benefits Supervisor

  • Feb 2020 - Present



Wolverhampton City Council

• Welfare Rights Officer

  • Oct 2012 - Feb 2020

  Embedded in a Social Work team providing second tier support and complex casework in Welfare Benefit matters.Having escaped the yoke of Legal Aid in this job I have inherited a wider remit so have found myself leading in litigation against DWP as well as Employment Tribunal Claims against Work Programme providers, that over and above more mundane appeals casework. I have been lucky enough to have the recent 3 judge panel of the Upper Tribunal in IM vs SSWP land on my desk and successfully argued that the scope of regulation 35(2) of the ESA regulations should be cast as wide as possible; reversing the effect of a long line of prior UT decisions.



Leicester Community Legal Advice Centre

• Welfare Benefits Supervisor

  • Apr 2012 - Oct 2012

  Although joining Leicester CLAC as a humble caseworker the supervisor position became vacant and was offered to me. During my time, beyond LSC accredited Welfare Benefits casework I was tasked with increasing matter starts and did so by implementing a drop in clinic to pick up new cases.



Birmingham Tribunal Unit

• Caseworker

  • Sep 2003 - Jan 2012

  Welfare Benefit appeal casework under LSC Specialist Quality Mark.In this position I really cut my teeth. I learned how Social Security legislation operates from a Tribunal's perspective; it was not unusual to be representing in 6 or more appeal hearings a week.The implementation of the Right to Reside test in 2004, and later EU directive 2004/38 gave me opportunity to test my hand at legal research; the implementation of European principles into residence requirements made for a significant game changer. That experience has been invaluable with my wider remit in Wolverhampton.Being in one of the largest immigrant populations in the country meant a lot of residency cases arose and I acted in a number of important cases including CIS/1121/2007 which, although unsuccessful helped clarify the position in light of adverse findings in the High Court. CIS/2100/2007 which defines how "dependency" is assessed (fair to say we referred this to CPAG when Comm'r Jacobs threatened to refer it to the European Court of Justice) and JS vs SSWP, Judge Jacobs' discussion of "times of feast and times of famine" when discussing self employed EU nationals.Sadly this job came to an end due to funding constraints when I was made redundant.



Lancashire County Council

• United Kingdom
• Government Administration
• 700 & Above Employee

• Welfare Rights Caseworker

  • Jun 1999 - Sep 2003

  One of the original 3 caseworkers employed to deal with their new Legal Aid franchise I provided Welfare Benefit casework and representation.