Wirral Borough Council v Farthing

For a council tax student discount, every condition defining a full-time course of education must be satisfied independently. A course must subsist for at least one academic year of the educational establishment, or one calendar year where the establishment has no academic years. Satisfying the minimum attendance and study requirements does not cure a shorter course. A tribunal cannot extend the statutory definition to intensive courses lasting less than the required period on pragmatic or policy grounds.

Wirral Borough Council appealed from a decision of the Merseyside Valuation Tribunal, which had allowed Michael Farthing’s appeal against the refusal of a student discount disregard for council tax. Mr Farthing had attended a mathematics enhancement course at Liverpool Hope University from 5 January to 28 June 2007. The parties accepted that the course satisfied the attendance and study requirements, but disputed whether it subsisted for at least one academic year under paragraph 4(1)(a) of Part II of Schedule 1 to the Council Tax (Discount Disregards) Order 1992.

The issue was whether the statutory requirements were cumulative and whether an intensive course shorter than an academic year could nevertheless qualify.

1. Appeal allowed. The Tribunal’s decision was set aside because it had erred in law.
2. Section 11 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992, read with Schedule 1 and the Council Tax (Discount Disregards) Order 1992, requires the relevant conditions for student disregard to be satisfied.
3. Paragraph 4(1) of Part II of Schedule 1 to the Disregards Order is cumulative. The course must independently satisfy subparagraphs (a), (b) and (c). It must subsist for at least one academic year, or one calendar year where the educational establishment has no academic years, as well as meeting the attendance and study requirements.
4. Paragraph 4(2)(c) adjusts the start of the relevant academic year where a course begins part-way through an academic year. It does not remove the requirement that the course itself subsist for the required period.
5. The respondent’s course ran for 24 weeks and four days. Although paragraphs (b) and (c) were satisfied, paragraph (a) was not. The course was therefore not a full-time course of education for council tax discount purposes.
6. The construction was supported by The Queen (on the application of Carmarthenshire County Council) v The West Wales Valuation Tribunal and Mrs T J Evans [2004] EWHC 223 (Admin), where Forbes J accepted that each of paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) had to be complied with.

• High Court (Chancery Division): appeal from the Merseyside Valuation Tribunal’s decision notice dated 6 November 2007. The appeal was allowed.