Seymour v Secretary Of State For Work And Pensions & Anor

An appeal to a Child Support Commissioner under the Child Support Act 1991 lies only on a question of law arising from a decision of an appeal tribunal. It does not provide a route to reopen the facts because new evidence has emerged, or to challenge a legally qualified panel member’s refusal to set aside a tribunal decision. Where no error of law is shown, permission to appeal must be refused if the proposed appeal has no real prospect of success. The possible availability of applications to the Secretary of State for revision or action based on new circumstances may reinforce that conclusion, although the court need not decide whether those applications would succeed.

A mother with care applied for a departure direction against an absent father on the grounds that he was diverting income or that his lifestyle was inconsistent with his declared income. The tribunal proceeded in his absence after he failed to comply with a direction to produce documents and failed to attend the hearing. It made a departure direction based on income diversion.

The father later supplied further financial material and applied for the decision to be set aside. That application was refused by a legally qualified panel member. A Child Support Commissioner dismissed his appeal, finding no error of law and holding that the refusal did not fall within the statutory right of appeal. The Court of Appeal considered the application for permission to appeal and an extension of time. The central issue was whether the Commissioner had power to revisit the decision because new factual information had emerged.

Application refused. Lord Justice Longmore concluded that the proposed appeal had no real prospect of success.

1. Section 24(1) of the Child Support Act 1991 permits an appeal to a Child Support Commissioner only on a question of law from a decision of an appeal tribunal.
2. The Commissioner was entitled to conclude that the tribunal had made no error of law on the information before it. The refusal to set aside the tribunal’s decision had been made by a legally qualified panel member, not by an appeal tribunal, and therefore fell outside the statutory right of appeal.
3. The proposed challenge depended on later factual material. It was therefore an attempt to use an appeal on a question of law to reopen the facts. The statutory provisions gave no scope for that course.
4. The court noted that applications might be available to the Secretary of State for revision of the original decision or on the basis of new circumstances, potentially with retrospective effect. It expressed no view on whether such an application would succeed, but their possible availability further supported the conclusion that permission should be refused.

Order: application refused.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Lord Justice Longmore refused permission to appeal and made the order that the application be refused.
• Child Support Commissioner: Mr Edward Jacobs dismissed the appeal, holding that the tribunal had made no error of law and that the refusal to set aside was outside the scope of the statutory appeal.
• Appeal tribunal: The tribunal made a departure direction in the absent parent’s absence and subsequently refused to set aside its decision.