[2025] UKUT 001 (AAC)

The position in relation to the decision on the 2020 claim is different. In the course of the current Upper Tribunal proceedings the Secretary of State has acknowledged that the decision on the 2020 claim involved an element of official error. In a written submission made after the first Upper Tribunal hearing, Mr Anderson reported the Department’s recognition that “on reflection … that decision does not engage adequately with the evidence presented, in particular in respect of the Respondent’s need for rests and the extent to which that affects mobility activity 2”. The Secretary of State accordingly “considers it appropriate to revise that decision pursuant to regulation 9(a)”. The resulting revision decision will presumably generate its own appeal rights.

The claimant makes two points by way of response. The first is that any revision by the Secretary of State of the decision on the 2020 claim is necessarily dependant on that aspect of the FTT decision being set aside, given that the Secretary of State cannot revise an extant FTT decision. The second is that the Secretary of State’s concession makes little difference in practice. This is because the parties were now agreed that the revision application in issue was in fact made within 13 months of the decision on the 2020 claim. That being so, as long as the claimant’s application was sufficiently broad to encompass a challenge to the 2020 decision then the revision could equally be conducted under regulation 5(1), time being extended as necessary under regulation 6.