Upper Tribunal Administrative Appeals Chamber

[2025] UKUT 332 (AAC)

Fecha: 21-Jul-2025

The grounds of appeal in both cases and the parties’ positions

The grounds of appeal in both cases and the parties’ positions

22.

Judge Stout granted permission to appeal in TR’s case on the basis that it was arguable that the Tribunal had erred in law. Judge Stout identified the following issues as arising for decision:

Where an application has been made more than 13 months after the original decision for revision on the ‘any time’ ground of ‘official error’, whether the First-tier Tribunal’s jurisdiction on appeal depends on:

the Secretary of State having considered an application that is, properly construed, an application on the ground of official error;

ii.

the appellant raising in the application an arguable case of ‘official error’;

iii.

the appellant raising on appeal an arguable case of ‘official error’; or

iv.

the Tribunal being satisfied on the merits that there has been an ‘official error’;

Whether, if the First-tier Tribunal has jurisdiction on such an appeal (whether on basis i, ii, iii or iv above), it is bound to go on to determine the appeal against the original decision on its full merits (by reference to all relevant activities in Schedule 1 to the PIP Regulations in the normal way) or is limited only to considering the ‘official error’ grounds;

If the answer to a. is i, ii or iii, whether the First-tier Tribunal erred in this case in not concluding that it did have jurisdiction to hear the substantive appeal as, given that this was a LEAP exercise, and the appellant’s request for reconsideration was a response to the Secretary of State having identified in principle grounds for ‘official error’, there could be no real doubt about the grounds on which the application had been made or their arguability;

If the answer to a. is iv., and the First-tier Tribunal was right to have sought to determine on the facts whether ‘official error’ was made out, whether it erred in law in the respects set out in the appellant’s grounds of appeal;

If the answer to b. is ‘yes’, whether the First-tier Tribunal erred in law in this case by failing to consider the appellant’s appeal on its full merits;

If, and to the extent that, the First-tier Tribunal in this case did seek to determine the appellant’s appeal against the original decision on its full merits, whether it erred in law in the respects alleged by the appellant in the grounds of appeal.

23.

Judge West granted permission to appeal in GD’s case on the following grounds:-

Ground 1 is that the First-tier Tribunal was wrong to conclude that the appellant’s appeal could only succeed if it was satisfied that the original decision arose from official error and that the First-tier Tribunal should have performed its statutory task of considering whether the appeal should be allowed on its merits;

Ground 2 is that the First-tier Tribunal was wrong to find in the appellant’s case that the decision did not arise from official error;

Ground 3 is that time did not run against GD because the Secretary of State in the decision of 19 April 2018 failed to notify the appellant of the time limit for making an application for mandatory reconsideration under regulation 5(1) of the Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment, Jobseeker’s Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance (Decisions and Appeals) Regulations 2013 (SI 2013/381) (“the D&A Regulations”) as required by regulation 7(3) of those Regulations.

24.

In the light of the common issues in the two cases, which involve questions of law of special difficulty or important principles of practice, the cases were listed together before a three-judge panel to consider the issues of law that we have identified in paragraph 1 of our decision.

25.

Although, as we describe below, there have been a number of conflicting decisions in the case law on these issues, by the time of the hearing, there was in fact a large measure of agreement between the parties as to the law. In particular, the parties were agreed that:

a right of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal arises whenever the Secretary of State has considered an application to revise a decision on the ground of official error; and,

where the First-tier Tribunal has jurisdiction to hear an appeal on that basis, the appeal is a full merits appeal against the original decision and is not restricted to considering whether there was an official error in the original decision.

26.

As will be seen, although the law in this area is not straightforward, we have ultimately concluded that we agree with the parties on these issues. In view of the large measure of agreement between the parties, we do not in this decision set out their submissions in detail, but we reflect their submissions in our discussion and analysis below. We are grateful to all the representatives for their very helpful submissions, which illuminated a number of aspects of the law in relation to cases such as these.