Decision Summary Information

Back to Results | Search Again | Most Recent Decisions

Neutral Citation Number:	2014 UKUT 549 AAC
Reported Number:
File Number:	CE 783 2014
Appellant:	Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Respondent:	PD (ESA)
Judge/Commissioner:	Three-Judge Panel / Tribunal of Commissioners
Date Of Decision:	10/12/2014
Date Added:	29/12/2014
Main Category:	Employment and support allowance
Main Subcategory:	other
Secondary Category:
Secondary Subcategory:
Notes:	Reported as [2015] AACR 24 Employment and support allowance – conversion decision – whether 2010 Regulations valid The Secretary of State decided, under the Employment and Support Allowance (Transitional Provisions, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit) (Existing Awards) (No.2) Regulations 2010 (SI 2010/1907) that the claimant’s award of income support did not qualify for conversion to an award of employment and support allowance because he did not have limited capacity for work and that it should therefore be terminated. The claimant successfully appealed to the First-tier Tribunal (F tT) which held, as a finding on a preliminary issue, that the claimant did not have limited capability for work but, at a separate hearing, that the 2010 Regulations were invalid because regulation 15 provided for the termination of existing awards otherwise than by way of supersession under the Social Security Act 1998 and amounted to an unlawful amendment to section 17 of that Act (relating to the finality of decisions). The Secretary of State appealed to the Upper Tribunal against the decision that the Regulations were invalid. Held, allowing the appeal, that: 1. the 2010 Regulations did not purport to amend the 1998 Act but made transitional provision and, while the background of the 1998 Act made it unlikely that Parliament intended Schedule 4 to the 2007 Act to permit the making of regulations providing for a conversion decision that might lead to a loss of benefit without there being a right of appeal, the 2010 Regulations did provide for a right of appeal against a decision that an award of benefit did not qualify for conversion and there was no value in there being an independent right of appeal against the consequential termination of the award and the Regulations were therefore valid (paragraphs 15 to 22); 2. as the 2010 Regulations contained an adequate right of appeal, it was unnecessary to hold that the termination of an existing award amounted to a supersession and it was inappropriate to do so because it would introduce an unnecessary complication into decision-making (paragraph 23); 3. the decision that the claimant did not have limited capability for work should also be set aside because no reasons had been given for the decision and the information provided to the claimant did not alert him, as a litigant in person, to the need to ask for reasons after his appeal had been allowed in order to protect his position should the Secretary of State appeal and be successful (paragraph 26). The decisions of the F-tT were set aside and the case remitted to a differently constituted tribunal to be re-decided.
Decision(s) to Download:	[2015] AACR 24ws.doc