[2025] UKUT 001 (AAC)

On the face of it, therefore, the FTT on 3 December 2021 accordingly erred in law. It lacked jurisdiction to hear any appeal against the DWP’s decisions on the second and third PIP claims. It should not have made an unlimited award of the standard rate of the mobility component. Instead, its jurisdiction was limited to the period covered by the DWP’s decision on the first claim, namely the period from 6 September 2017 (the date of claim for the first claim) to 18 October 2018 (the day before the date of claim for the second claim). I therefore propose to set aside the decision of the FTT dated 3 December 2021 (TCEA 2007 section 12(2)(a)). There has been no challenge by the Secretary of State to the substance of the FTT’s decision (as opposed to the period of the award) and indeed the claimant’s entitlement to the standard rate of the mobility component was conceded at the FTT hearing by the presenting officer. In those circumstances there is no point in remitting the appeal to the FTT for a fresh re-hearing. Rather, the Upper Tribunal can re-make the decision originally under appeal (TCEA 2007 section 12(2)(b)(ii)). The substituted decision is as follows:

It will be recalled that the central submission advanced on behalf of the claimant was that the FTT had jurisdiction to make an award for an indefinite period with effect from 6 September 2017 (and so, contrary to my primary finding above, did not err in law). This was, so it was said, because the claimant had lodged a valid in-time appeal against all three PIP decisions. I heard extensive oral argument on the assumption that on 15 June 2021 the claimant had made revision requests in relation to all three decisions. In deference to those submissions, and lest I am mistaken as to my primary finding, I proceed to consider the position on that same basis. This requires consideration of the claimant’s submission that any such requests were in time as the DWP’s decisions in question arose from ‘official error’ and so were accordingly susceptible to any time revision under regulation 9 of the Decisions and Appeals Regulations 2013.