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Neutral Citation Number: 2013 UKUT 209 AAC
Reported Number:
File Number: CCS 506 2012
Appellant: JF
Respondent: Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and DB and DB (CSM)
Judge/Commissioner: Judge N J Wikeley
Date Of Decision: 01/05/2013
Date Added: 27/06/2013
Main Category: Child support
Main Subcategory: receipt of benefit
Secondary Category:
Secondary Subcategory:
Notes: Reported as [2014] AACR 3. Child support – receipt of benefit – whether young person is “a person in respect of whom child benefit is payable” – the meaning of the word “payable” – whether child benefit properly in payment The appellant’s son lived with the mother (the resident parent). The appellant agreed to pay child support while his son was attending college. In December 2009 the son completed the first year of his City & Guilds course but did not return to college until September 2010. Child benefit continued in payment throughout this period. In March 2011 the son turned 19 years of age whereupon child benefit was stopped and the child support maintenance calculation closed. The appellant appealed against the decision that he was liable to pay child support for the period when his son was not attending college. The First-tier Tribunal (F tT) decided that the son qualified as a child under section 55(1) of the Child Support Act 1991, as child benefit remained in payment (it held that “payable” meant “actually paid”). The key issue before the Upper Tribunal (UT) was whether the word “payable” within the context of child support law meant that child benefit was (i) actually paid, (ii) payable under an award, whether that award was right or wrong, or (iii) properly or lawfully payable. Held, allowing the appeal, that: 1. in the present case the word “payable” in the phrase “a person in respect of whom child benefit is payable” in paragraph 1A of Schedule 1 to the Child Support (Maintenance Calculation Procedure) Regulations 2000 (as amended) meant “properly or lawfully payable”. This was consistent both with the usual meaning of “payable” and with the way in which that word had typically been interpreted in previous decisions (paragraphs 25 to 32); 2. the principle established by the Court of Appeal in Secretary of State for Social Security v Harmon, Carter and Cocks [1999] 1 WLR 163, also reported as R(CS) 4/99, namely that “paid” means actually paid not properly or lawfully paid, did not apply in this context as the language was not the same; paragraph 1A refers to whether child benefit is “payable”, not whether it is “paid”, and that decision turned on considerations which did not apply in the present case (paragraphs 23 to 24). The judge set aside the decision of the First-tier Tribunal and remitted the appeal to a differently constituted tribunal to be decided in accordance with his Directions.
Decision(s) to Download: [2014] AACR 3bv.doc [2014] AACR 3bv.doc