[2025] UKUT 001 (AAC)

The starting point for understanding the FTT’s jurisdiction is to go back to first principles, namely that the social security adjudication machinery is premised on decisions which are final, subject to the statutory processes of revision, supersession and appeal. Thus, by section 8 of the Social Security Act 1998 the Secretary of State makes decisions on claims for relevant benefits – which include PIP (see section 8(3)(baa), as amended). Such decisions may then be revised (section 9), superseded (section 10) or appealed (section 12).

The basic right of appeal is embodied in section 12(1) and (2), which provide as follows (so far as is material):

As a result of amendments made by the Welfare Reform Act 2012, the right of appeal has been made subject to the precondition that a claimant must first have requested a mandatory reconsideration from the Secretary of State by way of an application for a revision: see section 12(3A)-(3C).

It is also relevant in this context to note section 12(8), and in particular section 12(8)(b):

Section 17 further provides as follows (so far as is relevant) for the finality of decisions taken under this decision-making regime:

The main effect of section 17(1) is to prevent there being two decisions in respect of the same benefit for the same person for the same period. The point is neatly illustrated by the decision of Commissioner Parker in CSDLA/237/2003. The claimant in that case had applied for disability living allowance (DLA) on 9 February 2001, a claim which was refused on 15 May 2001. He then made a further claim for DLA on 18 July 2002, which was likewise refused on 24 September 2002. The claimant’s appeal against the first DLA disallowance decision was successful at a hearing on 26 November 2002, the tribunal awarding the lowest rate of the DLA component for the period from 9 February 2001 until 17 July 2002. The claimant appealed, arguing that the tribunal was wrong to have limited the period of the award to 17 July 2002.

In her decision dismissing the claimant’s appeal, Commissioner Parker reasoned as follows (Mr Brown, referred to in this passage, appeared in that case for the Secretary of State):

The same approach was taken by Commissioner Fellner in her decision in CDLA/114/2004. Echoing Commissioner Parker, she remarked (at paragraph 3) that “chaos would ensue if there were two separate decisions both dealing with the same, or partly the same, period, and it could be unfair to a claimant who did better, rather than, as here, worse under the second decision.”

Much more recently, the same approach was adopted by Upper Tribunal Judge Hemingway in GG v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (PIP) [2019] UKUT 318 (AAC):

It follows – and quite possibly contrary to the reasonable expectations of many appellants – that the main focus of the benefits adjudication machinery is on the decision under appeal rather than on the individual who is bringing that appeal. As I observed in GJ v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (PIP) [2022] UKUT 340 (AAC) (and see to similar effect KK v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (PIP) [2023] UKUT 151 (AAC) at paragraphs 4-9):

In the present appeal neither Mr Williams (at the first hearing of the Upper Tribunal appeal) nor Mr Royston (at the second hearing), both appearing on behalf of the claimant, sought to challenge this line of authority. It follows that if this was a straightforward case, with the 2021 FTT indisputably seised only of the claimant’s appeal against the disallowance decision on her 2017 claim, then they would accept that the period under consideration was constrained by the start date for the DWP’s adverse decision on the subsequent 2018 claim.

However, Mr Williams and Mr Royston submitted that this was not such a straightforward case. Their core submission was that the FTT had the jurisdiction to make an award for an indefinite period from 6 September 2017 because the claimant had made a valid appeal against all three PIP decisions. This was, they said, because the claimant had made timely revision requests in relation to all three decisions – timely because the decisions all arose from official error and so were susceptible to any time (rather than any grounds) revision. In the alternative, if not all the decisions arose from official error, there were defects in the Secretary of State’s notification of the decisions such that time had not started to run and so the requests were necessarily in time. Finally, in the further alternative, it was argued that the claimant was entitled to bring appeals in respect of each decision without first seeking revision by way of a mandatory reconsideration. Thus, they argued, all three PIP decisions were within the scope of the claimant’s appeal because of the route taken to arrive at the FTT. This route therefore needs to be examined.