[2025] UKUT 001 (AAC)

Regulation 9(a) provides that a decision may be revised where it “arose from official error”. Regulation 2 provides a partial definition of “official error” by reference to the type of actor involved in perpetrating the error and by excluding errors of law which have been shown to be such by a subsequent decision of the Upper Tribunal or a relevant court. However, beyond that regulation 2 is silent as to what actually constitutes an “official error”, meaning the scope of the concept has had to be worked out incrementally in the case law.

In the context of the usage of the term under the housing benefit scheme, Commissioner Howell QC referred to “the kind of ‘mistake’ envisaged by the wording used in this regulation, which is a ‘clear and obvious’ error of fact or law made by some officer on the facts disclosed to him, or which he had reason to believe were relevant” (R(H) 2/04 at paragraph 13). Likewise, Commissioner Levenson ruled as follows in CPC/206/2005:

The question then is whether either of the DWP decisions on the 2018 and 2020 claims respectively was infected by official error. There is, however, a prior question which arises for consideration in the present appeal. This is that the claimant contends that it does not matter whether a revision request implicitly or expressly identifies official error (or indeed any other ground) as a ground for revision. In the alternative, the claimant submits that she did in fact implicitly request revision on the ground of official error.