[2024] UKUT 251 (AAC)

There are no factual issues between the parties. The only issues raised by this appeal are questions of law.

In October 2013 the claimant was awarded an employment and support allowance under the ESA Regulations based on functional limitations he experienced as a result of his profound deafness and paranoid schizophrenia.

On 2 November 2020 the claimant started a job at an Amazon warehouse, working 15 hours a week. On 22 December 2020 he completed a ‘PW1’ form which he sent to the Department for Work and Pensions to notify it that he had started ‘permitted work’ (a form of ‘exempt work’ under regulation 45 of the ESA Regulations).

In his PW1 form the claimant disclosed that his earnings from his job at Amazon were £131.28 per week. He provided his first five wage slips.

Wage slips dated 13 November 2020 and 20 November 2020 (relating to the first two weeks of the claimant’s employment) provided by the claimant show gross wages of £146.55 and £148.34, respectively, with no deductions made. The claimant had mistakenly clocked on early in his first two weeks in the job, which led to his being paid more than expected. The claimant accepts that this took his wages over the ‘permitted work’ limit in those first two weeks and that he is therefore not entitled to any employment and support allowance in respect of that fortnight.

The wage slips for the nine weeks that followed showed earnings of £138.95 after a deduction of £6.55 in respect of ‘EE Pension Salary Sacrifice’.

The claimant’s pay slips record a ‘discretionary payment’ of £150 (the claimant’s Christmas bonus) on 29 January 2021.

The remining four wage slips (dated 5 February to 26 February 2021) show statutory sick pay only. After the period covered by the 26 February 2021 pay slip the claimant’s employment then came to an end.

The pay slips show deductions for various insurance payments. The claimant accepts that these amounts fall to be treated as part of his ‘earnings’ for the purposes of the ESA Regulations.

The Secretary of State decided that the claimant ceased to be entitled to an employment and support allowance (the “SoS Decision”). The claimant appealed the SoS Decision to the First-tier Tribunal.