Child Disability Payment decision making guide

Additional supporting information

To supplement the confirmation from a professional, and their application or review form, an individual can provide additional supporting information. This supporting information helps you to establish the individual’s level of need and their entitlement.

This can come from either a professional or from their wider support network. Additional supporting information from the client’s wider support network should never be used as the confirmation from a professional.

The individual’s wider support network might include:

  • family members
  • partners
  • friends or neighbours
  • unpaid carers
  • volunteers leading groups or activities the individual attends

It can help to inform you of the impact the individual’s condition, disability or needs has on their everyday life.

Individuals may provide this information with their application or review form. If this is the case, you should always consider this information in your decision-making process. This also applies if the individual themselves has provided enough detail on their needs for you to establish their entitlement.

If you need more information on the individual’s everyday needs and they have not provided any additional supporting information, you should consider all of the following:

  • what decision-making tool would be most appropriate to gather the information you need
  • if contacting the individual themselves or the person acting on their behalf would provide the information you need. You should always consider this first before requesting additional supporting information
  • if requesting additional supporting information is the best tool who would be the best source of additional supporting information, if you have established that additional supporting information is the most appropriate decision-making tool

Additional supporting information is just one decision-making tool that can be used to resolve gaps and inconsistencies. It should not be used as the default tool where you need more information on the individual’s needs.

The role of additional supporting information

Additional supporting information is just one of many decision-making tools you can use to determine an individual’s entitlement. You should refer to the Principles of decision-making chapter to determine which tool is the most appropriate on a case-by-case basis.

It can come from either a professional or the client’s wider support network but it is not a requirement in order for you to make a determination.

Its purpose is to add detail to the application or review form by describing the individual’s needs on a day-to-day basis. It should give insight into the impact the condition or disability has on the individual’s daily life. It should not be used as an alternative way to ‘evidence’ or ‘proof’ of what the individual has told us in their application or review form.

It may be provided with the application form. Where you have this information, you should always take it into account.

It should only be requested if both:

  • the individual hasn’t provided the level of detail needed in the application
  • you think that gathering additional supporting information is the best decision-making tool to resolve questions, gaps or inconsistencies

You may need more information before you can make a determination. If you establish that additional supporting information is the appropriate tool to gather this information, you need to consider who would be the best source for this information.

For example, health and social care professionals are less likely to be able to observe the individual’s daily routine or mobility. Some allied health professionals like physiotherapists can offer observations on this, but not every individual will have contact with this type of professional.

Therefore, people closely connected with a disabled person can be useful sources of information about the impact a disability or condition has on an individual. This is why information from the individual’s wider support network is particularly valuable.

If the source of this additional supporting information is a professional, it is possible that it can also act as a confirmation from a professional. Where the information can act as both types of supporting information, you should be careful not to use the additional detail as a tool to ‘evidence’ or confirm every need.

Once you have established the confirmation, this additional detail should only be used to inform your understanding of their needs.

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