Our office has just received a phone call from a very livid appeal rep. I'm angry and it wasn't my appeal. She was repping a client at a recent ICB appeal before a new chair. Parting shot from the chair at the appeal end was along the lines of-

You will have seen in the media and press whats happening with Incapacity Benefit and with that in view they had to consider the public purse when they came to a decision.

So what happened to decisions based on the regs.

Lovely!

I have no idea whether anything can be extracted from this, but I'll float it anyway. There is some HB case law <R v LB Brent HBRB ex p Connery (1989) 22 HLR 40> where it was found that LAs could not consider subsidy in deciding whether or not a rent was "unreasonably high". Just wondered if any arguments can be taken from that; or at least modified accordingly.

Hope it at least helps to point in the right direction.

Regards

Clearly a error in law The tribunalmust only work within the legal frame , and cannot consider any other factors I.E. only legislation and caselaw and how they relate to the facts of the case can be considered, the public purse is irrelevant.See R(A)1/72 which is nicely interpreted in the disability rights hand book on page257, and lodge an appeal to commissioners or request a set a side as the tribunal clearly erred in law( Putting it Mildly)and were proceedurally wrong. I usually follow both options in case set a side fails and you can fall back on commissioners, as you do not have to wait for statement of reasons to request a set a side, so it is quicker for client .
Your biggest problem may be proving the Chair made the comments and it is a shame your colleague didn't register acomplaint at the time( I am assuming she didnt andi assume the appeal was lost/dismissed).I would also lodged a complaint about the comments to the regional Chairman, whatever other action is taken on behalf of your client.

Breach of natural justice in my view, apparent bias. Suggest the rep writes down very clearly exactly what the Chair said cos it won't appear in the written reasons!

I think verbal comments by Tribunal members are enough to demonstrate such a case but evidence of what they said is key. So a clear record will be required.

Thu 02-Feb-06 10:52 AM by ken

See http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/pdfs/CDLA_581_2004.pdf my albatross! (para near the end)