WK v The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions & Anor
[2024] UKUT 7 (AAC)
LF v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions & Anor (CSM)
3 May 2024
[2024] UKUT 136 (AAC)
Upper Tribunal
A parent appealed a child support payment increase. The judge found mistakes in the lower court's decision and corrected them. The corrected amount is due from a later date than originally decided, but earlier than the government initially wanted.
Key Facts
- •Appeal against First-tier Tribunal (F-tT) decision concerning child maintenance payments.
- •Dispute over the effective date of an increase in weekly child maintenance liability from £46.96 to £137.03.
- •CMS initially calculated maintenance based on historic income, unaware of significantly higher current income.
- •Subsequent CMS decisions (March and May 2018) attempted to backdate the increased payment.
- •F-tT initially found CMS decisions to be nullities due to lack of written notification.
- •F-tT's decision notice and statement of reasons contained conflicting information on the effective date of the increase.
- •Appellant argued for an effective date of August 30, 2017, while the Secretary of State argued for January 18, 2017.
Legal Principles
Inconsistency between a decision notice and statement of reasons amounts to a material error of law.
LA v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (ESA) [2014] UKUT 0482 (AAC)
A revision for official error can only revise the decision which arose from the official error; not preceding decisions.
Regulation 14 of the Child Support Maintenance Calculation Regulations 2012
A decision is not rendered a nullity simply due to lack of proper notification; failure to notify does not invalidate the decision itself.
R(U) 7/81, R(SB) 41/83, R (Majera) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] UKSC 46
A decision not to supersede can be revised for official error.
CCS/1282/2010
Supersession is barred if revision for official error is available.
Regulation 17(4) of the 2012 Regulations
Outcomes
The Upper Tribunal allowed the appeal.
The F-tT made material errors of law, including conflicting decisions, improperly revising a pre-dating decision, and incorrectly labeling CMS decisions as nullities.
The Upper Tribunal remade the decision.
The Upper Tribunal found official error on March 30, 2017, allowing for revision of the decision not to supersede the initial calculation. The increase in child maintenance payment was backdated to March 30, 2017.