[2025] UKUT 365 (AAC)

IIDB is a benefit with a long history going back to the Workmen’s Compensation Act 1897 which required employers to compensate employees “if in any employment to which this Act applies personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of the employment is caused to a workman”.

The 1897 Act applied only to employment “in or about a railway, factory, mine, quarry or engineering work, or in construction of buildings over thirty feet in height”. In subsequent statutes, the employments covered were broadened, and IIDB is now in principle available to all “employed earners”. “Employed earner” is defined in section 2 of the SSCBA 1992 as “a person who is gainfully employed in Great Britain either under a contract of service, or in an office (including elective office) with earnings”. Self-employed earners are excluded, but earners in Crown employment, and a number of other employments not traditionally regarded as employed under contract, are included by sections 115 to 121 or by virtue of The Social Security (Employed Earners' Employments for Industrial Injuries Purposes) Regulations 1975 (SI 1975/467). One notable exclusion is members of the armed forces (see section 116), in respect of whom separate compensation schemes are provided. Otherwise, there are no relevant exclusions by way of category of profession.

The SSCBA 1992 thus in principle applies to professional sportspeople, musicians, actors, stunt performers, etc, as it does to other lines of work, provided, of course, that they are “employed” rather than “self-employed”. However, sections 108-110 make provision for the Secretary of State to prescribe that industrial injuries benefits will be payable for certain categories of employed earners in respect of certain diseases or injuries, so that in practice people who suffer certain types of injuries in certain types of employment have an easier route to claiming IIDB than others. By section 108(2):

“A disease or injury may be prescribed in relation to any employed earners if the Secretary of State is satisfied that:

(a)

it ought to be treated, having regard to its causes and incidence and any other relevant considerations, as a risk of their occupations and not as a risk common to all persons; and

(b)

it is such that, in the absence of special circumstances, the attribution of particular cases to the nature of the employment can be established or presumed with reasonable certainty”.

The legislation is structured so that IIDB payable under section 94(1) in respect of personal injuries caused by accident arising out of and in the course of employment is the primary route to benefit in respect of ‘personal injuries’, since by section 108(1)(b), benefit is not payable in respect of a prescribed personal injury if it is an injury caused by an accident arising out of and in the course of employment. In contrast, for ‘diseases’, the primary route to benefit is under section 108 because, by section 108(6), a person “shall not be entitled to benefit in respect of a disease as being an injury by accident arising out of and in the course of any employment if at the time of the accident the disease is in relation to him a prescribed disease by virtue of the occupation in which he is engaged in that employment”.

A number of diseases are prescribed for various occupations (subject to various conditions) under the Social Security (Industrial Injuries) (Prescribed Diseases) Regulations 1985 (SI 1985/967). The Industrial Injuries Advisory Council (IIAC) is responsible for considering and making recommendations to the Secretary of State as to whether diseases or injuries should be prescribed. The IIAC’s policy is to recommend prescription where there is convincing research evidence that risks of disease from a given exposure are more than doubled relative to the risk in a comparable section of the general population. As the First-tier Tribunal in this case noted in its decision, in May 2016 the IIAC undertook a review of the evidence as to links between head trauma in professional sportspeople and neurodegenerative diseases such as motor neurone disease (MND), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease, but did not recommend prescription. In its 2024/2025 Annual Report (published 19 August 2025), the IIAC has announced its intention to undertake a further review, the outcome of which is scheduled to be reported in April or May 2026.

At present, therefore, there are no prescribed diseases relevant to professional sportspeople who are accordingly only entitled to IIDB if they have suffered “personal injury caused by accident arising out of and in the course of [their] employment” under section 94(1) and if they otherwise fulfil the conditions of entitlement under the Act. In particular, by section 103(1) an employed earner is only entitled to IIDB “if he suffers as the result of the relevant accident from loss of physical or mental faculty such that the assessed extent of the resulting disablement amounts to not less than 14 per cent…”.