Wood v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions

An existing benefit award may not be reduced or withdrawn by a superseding decision unless a prescribed condition for supersession has been established in fact. Under regulation 6 of the Social Security and Child Support (Decisions and Appeals) Regulations 1999, a relevant change of circumstances is not established merely because a claimant has sought a review or because the decision maker reaches a fresh view of unchanged evidence.

The supersession must address the ground which lawfully triggered it. It does not permit a decision maker to reopen an earlier award on unrelated grounds. The court also expressed obiter views that a properly constituted but unsuccessful application for supersession should attract an appeal right, although the judges differed over the statutory route to that result.

Mr Wood held a lifetime award of the higher-rate mobility component of disability living allowance. He applied for reconsideration because his care needs had changed. The Secretary of State refused the care component and, without identifying any change in his mobility, terminated the mobility component.

The Harlow appeal tribunal dismissed his appeal without deciding whether there had been a relevant change of circumstances. A Social Security Commissioner set aside that decision and remitted the matter, directing a fresh tribunal to proceed on the basis that the threshold criterion in regulation 6(2)(a)(i) was satisfied: CDLA/3912/2001.

The appeal concerned whether a factual finding of a prescribed condition was required before the mobility award could be superseded, and the related scope of appeal rights under the statutory scheme.

1. Appeal allowed unanimously. Rix LJ, with Arden and Dyson LJJ agreeing on the dispositive issue, held that the Secretary of State could not lawfully terminate Mr Wood’s mobility award without first finding that a prescribed condition for supersession existed in fact. No finding had been made that his ability to walk had changed.

2. Section 10 of the Social Security Act 1998 and regulation 6 of the Social Security and Child Support (Decisions and Appeals) Regulations 1999 had to be read together. Regulation 6(2)(a)(i) did not allow an earlier decision to be displaced merely because a change of circumstances was asserted, or because the Secretary of State reached a different view of existing medical evidence. A relevant change had to be established and had to provide the lawful basis for the new outcome.

3. Arden LJ further explained that regulation 6(2) identifies threshold grounds for a properly made supersession process, rather than outcome criteria. Once the process has been properly initiated, the Secretary of State must determine whether the alleged ground is made out and what consequence follows from it. The original decision cannot be reopened on extraneous grounds. On the facts, the care-needs application did not justify reconsidering mobility without a relevant change relating to mobility.

4. The Commissioner’s direction that the tribunal must assume the threshold criterion was satisfied was therefore erroneous. The matter was remitted to a differently constituted appeal tribunal to decide consistently with the court’s principles and with the Commissioner’s directions only so far as consistent with them.

5. The discussion of appeal rights was expressly obiter. All members of the court accepted that a properly constituted unsuccessful application under section 10 should have an appeal right. Rix LJ, whose approach Dyson LJ preferred, would read section 12(9) compatibly with article 6(1) of the Convention. Arden LJ considered that its ordinary meaning already achieved that result.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division) — allowed Mr Wood’s appeal and remitted the matter to a differently constituted appeal tribunal.
• Social Security Commissioner — in CDLA/3912/2001, set aside the Harlow appeal tribunal’s decision and remitted the case, but directed that the regulation 6(2)(a)(i) threshold be treated as satisfied.
• Harlow appeal tribunal — dismissed the appeal against the Secretary of State’s decision terminating the mobility component.