[2025] UKUT 168 (AAC)

Insofar as it remains relevant, I consider that the Secretary of State is also entitled to succeed on his second ground of appeal.

The continuing relevance of the second ground may be doubted given (i) I have accepted under the first ground of appeal that it was for the claimant, and not the Secretary of State, to choose the date from which he wished his state pension entitlement to begin, (ii) that the claimant clearly identified this date as being 20 August 2022 in the claim form, thus deferring his entitlement for one year, and (iii) the FTT found as a fact that the Secretary of State was entitled to take this answer at face value. Given these considerations, and given I have accepted under the first ground of appeal that this date could not be altered after the claim had been decided, it may be difficult to identify the factual and legal basis for the Secretary of State investigating this issue before she decided the claim. However, insofar as the FTT considered it was a material failing of the Secretary of State in making his decision on 17 August 2022 not to have investigated the claim further, I consider it erred in law in so deciding.

Given this is very much a secondary (and contingent) ground of appeal, I can set out my reasons on it quite shortly.

The overall starting point is that it is for the Secretary of State to ask the relevant questions of a claimant sufficient to establish their entitlement: Kerr v Department of Social Development [2004] 1 WLR at [16], [58] and [62]. The duty in Kerr may be seen as an application of the Tameside principle in the particular context of administration of state benefits: see R (Turner) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2021] PTSR 1312 [89]. It does not therefore impose an obligation on the Secretary of State to take unreasonable or disproportionate steps: see R (Balajigari) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] 1 WLR 4647 at [70].

I accept in the present case that it was sufficient for the Secretary of State to ask the claimant the date from when he wished to get his state pension. Given the clear and unambiguous answer the claimant gave to that question, no further investigation was required. Had the claimant answered the question with, for example, “Not sure, either my 66^th or 67^th birthday”, the claim may not have been thought to be complete and may have required investigation, but that was not what occurred in this case.

Whenever a claim for a state pension is made after a person has attained pensionable age, there will always be the possibility that the claimant may wish his entitlement to commence up to a year before the date of claim. However, absent some indication in the claim itself that would give the Secretary of State reasonable cause to investigate, the theoretical possibility that a claimant might have chosen another date than the one positively set out by him in the claim is not a matter that in my judgement places the Secretary of State under a duty to investigate, or engage in an iterative process with claimants following the claim: see relatedly paragraphs [17] and [56] of Miah.

As for the criticisms the FTT seemingly made about the speed with which the claim was decided (on the same day), that speed on its face was consistent with good administration, at least in terms of deciding the claimant’s entitlement “without undue delay” (per R(DLA) 4/05 at paragraph [22]) and given the clear answers the claimant had provided on his claim.

Nor can I see that recourse to “good practice” assists. If this is an argument for investigating all answers (clear or otherwise) given by claimants in the claim form when they have made claims for the state pension after they have attained pensionable age, it would in my plain judgement place an unreasonable and disproportionate burden on the Secretary of State, and one which would arguably subvert rather than give effect to Kerr.