[2025] UKUT 131 (AAC)

Both parties found the 22 July letter puzzling.

The claimant said she didn’t take any steps to appeal the extension decision, she made no request for her PIP to be looked at again (whether by way of a request for revision or supersession), and the 22 July letter was unsolicited. However, she maintained that “whatever the reason” for the 22 July letter, it either amounted to, or evidenced, a decision made on behalf of the Secretary of State, and it gave rise to a fresh right of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal. The claimant said she applied for a mandatory reconsideration of the decision comprised in or evidenced by, the 22 July letter. She said her representative had received verbal confirmation from someone at the Department for Work and Pensions that a mandatory reconsideration decision had been issued, but no mandatory reconsideration decision letter had been received.

Mr Hammond said a “thorough” search of the Department for Work and Pensions’ system had disclosed no decision made on 22 July 2021 in relation to the claimant’s PIP entitlement, or indeed any evidence of any mandatory reconsideration exercise. The only explanation he could think of was that the 22 July letter might have been prompted by the claimant challenging the extension decision. However, the claimant denied having made such a challenge.

The significance that the parties accord to the 22 July Letter is very different.

The claimant said that either the 22 July letter is itself a decision, or it evidences that a decision has been made in the terms recorded in it. The Secretary of State says that the 22 July letter must have been generated in error, and neither constitutes nor evidences any decision giving rise to any right of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal.