Hello all.

Recently attended a DLA appeal which was refused on a majority verdict. When statement received did not include minority view, so applied leave to appeal on grounds record of reasons not adequate (in line with CSB/389/82). The Chairman has refused leave, on the basis that he has now added a supplemental statement to remedy the omission.

We'll be pursuing an appeal on other grounds, but I just wondered if there would be any purpose in making an issue of the failure to provide an adeuqate statement the first time round. Is it legitimate to add a supplement after the event?

All comments welcomed.

I'm not sure that a "supplemental" statement of reasons cuts it. In truth, it sounds like it amounts to a second statement of reasons.

CA/4297/2004 may well be of interest. In short, there can only be ONE statement of reasons (assuming this CD hasn't been overtaken since).

Thanks very much for that. That's precisely what was needed, and I look forward to pointing out it would not be a hideous waste of costs to arrange a rehearing....

CDLA/5722/2001 is authority for the point that a failure to enclose the dissenting member’s reasons is a straightforward error of law under reg 53(5) of the D&A Regs.

However, at paragraph 3 the Commissioner states: -

“no doubt, if a chairman is faced with an application for leave to appeal based on the lack of a record of reasons for dissent, that chairman can consider correcting the statement of reasons to include that record. However, I suspect that in most instances the chairman will be unable to make such a correction because the reason that the statement did not include the record of reasons for dissent in the first place will be that the chairman was not the dissenting member of the tribunal and had forgotten to make a note of the dissenting member’s reasons. The lapse of time will often make it inappropriate to try and obtain, at that stage, a statement of reasons from the dissenting member”.

So if the chairman can correct the statement of reasons there will probably not be an error of law under reg 53(5).

Thanks for that - but I think I preferred the first answer!