Upper Tribunal Administrative Appeals Chamber

[2025] UKUT 337 (AAC)

Fecha: 08-Oct-2025

The background to the local authority’s application for permission to appeal

The background to the local authority’s application for permission to appeal

On 4 April 2019 the LA decided that the claimant had been overpaid HB amounting to the sum of £672.74 for the period from 5 November 2018 to 1 April 2019 as she had ceased to pay for childcare. This had had the effect of increasing the amount of her earnings for the purposes of her HB claim, resulting in the overpayment, which the LA decided was recoverable.Following a reconsideration, the claimant lodged an appeal with the LA on 31 May 2019.

On 2 October 2024 – so more than five years later – the LA referred the claimant’s appeal to the FTT along with its response and the appeal bundle.

The FTT heard the claimant’s appeal on 3 March 2025. The FTT allowed the appeal and set aside the LA’s decision of 4 April 2019. In its summary Decision Notice, the FTT explained its findings and reasoning as follows (with a typo as to one date corrected):

[The Appellant] has shown that she notified the respondent, on 2 December 2018, that childcare costs for her daughter … had ceased on 1 December 2018. [The Appellant] followed up this initial report with further telephone calls and email to the respondent. She provided written proof from the childcare provider that childcare costs had ceased.

The appeal submission confirms in writing that officers at Luton Council reassured [the Appellant] that the change in circumstances was recorded on her file and that it is an official error that the change has not been implemented. The Tribunal has identified at least four notifications of this change.

A further factor is that the decision was made on 4 April 2019, [the Appellant] lodged an appeal on 31 May 2019. The appeal was not forwarded to the Tribunal Service until 2 October 2024 - over five years later.

The overpayment is not recoverable from [the Appellant]. The Tribunal finds that [the Appellant] could not have done any more. Both parties have provided proof that she queried the award notification that she received after having notified the change in circumstances.

The FTT also issued a full Statement of Reasons for its decision. In reality, this said little more than the Decision Notice. Its tenor was remarkably restrained in the circumstances.