[2024] UKUT 340 (AAC)

The DWP response to PHC’s original appeal to the FTT included on the cover page a NiNo starting with the letters ‘SG’ (which I refer to here as the ‘SG NiNo’). According to Ms Cowan, the SG NiNo was allocated to a person known as HCU on 2 March 2006. As such, she contends, that SG NiNo would not have been traceable using the surname which the Appellant gave when (now) describing herself as PHC. Ms Cowan adds that at the time of the UC claim the decision-maker did not know about the SG NiNo. However, in the absence of the full UC claim form from the FTT appeal bundle it is not clear whether PHC did in fact refer to the SG NiNo at the time of her original claim. What appears to be beyond any doubt is that in her request for mandatory reconsideration (her letter dated 4 March 2022) PHC certainly and expressly cited the SG NiNo by way of a case reference.

PHC subsequently provided the Upper Tribunal with further evidence, notably by way of various attachments to an e-mail dated 26 January 2024 (timed at 11:51:53). It is not clear from the electronic file whether this evidence was copied by the Upper Tribunal office to the Secretary of State’s representative. Be that as it may, I direct that a copy of this e-mail (with its multiple attachments) should be forwarded by the Upper Tribunal office to both the Secretary of State’s representative and the relevant FTT office. This evidence includes copies of the following:

It may well be that the new FTT takes the view that on the basis of this evidence it can be satisfied on the balance of probabilities that PHC meets the requirements of section 1(1A) and (1B) of the SSAA 1992. However, that is ultimately a question of fact for the new tribunal to determine. In the meantime, I direct the Secretary of State’s representative to provide a further supplementary submission for the FTT dealing with the significance of this further evidence.

Meanwhile PHC would be well advised to gather together any further relevant evidence to assist in confirming both her own identity and that of each of her four children. This will obviously include any formal legal documentation (e.g. passports, birth certificates, driving licences and deed polls). It could also include other official documentation (e.g. correspondence from HMRC (about tax credits and/or child benefit), GPs, hospitals, schools and financial institutions such as banks) and any further documentation which goes to show that she was HCU, and she is now PHC, and that they are one and the same person, and that she has four children as she states.