[2025] UKUT 026 (AAC)

Mrs W’s new carer’s allowance claim was made 11 days prior to the date of the FTT’s decision on Mr W’s PIP appeal. It follows that the claim could only be said to be “within 3 months of” of the FTT’s decision if the quoted words

In its response to the appeal, the Respondent submitted that requiring that something be done “within” a set time “of” a stated event, is not the same as requiring that it be done “no later than” the expiry of the set time. The Respondent pointed out that elsewhere in the regulations, in particular regulation 6(18), the “no later than” formulation was used, indicating that the regulations were drafted with the difference between these different formulations in mind. Mr Skinner made the further argument that because entitlement to carer’s allowance depends on the qualifying benefit being “payable” to the disabled person (section 70(2) of the 1992 Act), the regulation must have envisaged the earliest time for making the claim as the decision awarding the qualifying benefit.

I accept that the more restricted interpretation of “within 3 months of” is the more natural one, and more in line with the plain meaning of the words used. It is unclear to me what harm or disadvantage there would be in allowing claimants to put in their claims “early” (as, in effect, happened here); and the facts of this appeal put into stark relief the consequences of “jumping the gun” by only 11 days. But these are not good enough reasons to depart from the plain meaning of the words in the regulation; and this means that there was no error of law in the challenged FTT decision deciding that regulation 6(33) did not apply.