HB dept refered an appeal to TAS as not duly made as they said the person appealing did not have a right of appeal. The full time chair decided they did and so the case went to a hearing. At the hearing which neither I nor the claimant attended the HB rep raised the issue again and the tribunal came to the opposite conclusion to the full time chair and disallowed the appeal solely on the grounds that claimant was not a person affected and therfore had no right of appeal. Was the full time chairman's decision at all binding on the tribunal?

I wouldn't think so. The chairs decision to allow the appeal in was probably based simply on the face of the papers and would have been along the lines of there being a case to argue, in essence the chair only made a decision that the case should be heard, I don;t think this binds the outcome of hte appeal in any way. Request a statement of reasons anyway and see what comes out of the bag.

The statement of reasons does not mention the decision of the chair that the appeal should go ahead and does not at all consider whether the decision under appeal was right or wrong, just whether the claimant was a person affected. I'm not sure the tribunal was aware of the chair's decision (reading the statement it seems unlikely). Not sure how much difference this makes to the decision of the tribunal. Is there any mileage in arguing that the chairs decision was like a grant of leave to appeal and as such the tribunal had to consider the appeal?

I don't think so.

I am in a rush so I will make this quick. The very fact that the full-time Chairman allowed the tribunal to progress to the hearing stage has raised a legitimate expectation for the claimant that his/her appeal will be heard. The tribunal is, in my opinion, estopped from preventing the appeal due to the fact that the full-time Chairman has allowed the appeal to progress to the hearing (See reg. 20 of D&A 2001 Regs). It is important to note that the full-time Chairman could have refused for the hearing to take place under reg. 20.

A futher point is the fact that since the full-time Chairman allowed the appeal to be heard, the Chairman of the Appeal Hearing has no jurisdiction to look at the issue of whether the appeal has been duly made (this is a reg. 20 issue which the full-time Chairman has allowed). The Chairman of the appeal hearing can only look at the issues arising at the date of decision (the Chairman of the Appeal Hearing cannot look at the issue of whether the appeal has been duly made - see reg. 20 and Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Act 2000, SCHEDULE 7, S.6(9):

In deciding an appeal under this paragraph, an appeal tribunal-

(a) need not consider any issue that is not raised by the appeal; and

(b) shall not take into account any circumstances not obtaining at the time when the decision appealed against was made.


Sorry this is rushed and I hope it make sense. You definitely have an appeal to the commissioners.

Thanks very much for your help. Rushed? it is a very clear explanation. Unfortunately the client has had enough and wants to drop the whole thing but it will be useful for me to be aware of this for the future.