Boskovic, R (On the Application Of) v Chief Constable of Staffordshire Police

Under regulation 32(2) of the Police (Injury Benefit) Regulations 2006, a police pension authority must exercise its agreement power consistently with the provision’s statutory purpose. That purpose includes correcting factual or legal mistakes affecting pension entitlement. The authority must consider the underlying merits and may also consider delay, finality, evidential difficulties and the practical possibility of a fair reconsideration. A subsidiary consideration of the cost of reconsideration is permissible where it concerns an unfair or wasteful process, rather than avoiding payment of an award properly due.

The claimant, a former police officer, was refused an injury award in 2002 after an SMP concluded that her psychiatric disablement had not been caused or substantially contributed to by an injury received in the execution of duty. She withdrew her appeal in 2003.

After learning of later decisions concerning regulation 32(2) of the Police (Injury Benefit) Regulations 2006, she asked the defendant to agree to referral of the causation issue back to a medical authority. The defendant refused, relying on delay, the unavailability of the original doctors, uncertainty of causation and the fairness and cost of reconsideration. The issue was whether that refusal was unlawful.

1. Application refused. The defendant’s refusal to agree to reconsideration was lawful.
2. Applying the Padfield principle, the power under regulation 32(2) had to be exercised consistently with its statutory purpose. The court assumed, following R (Crudace) v Northumbria Police Authority and R (Haworth) v Northumbria Police Authority, that the purpose included securing correct pension payments and correcting factual or legal mistakes which might leave an officer underpaid.
3. The defendant was required to consider the merits of the alleged mistake in the original causation decision. The decision letters did so by addressing conflicting medical evidence and recording that causation was not clear cut.
4. Delay was also a permissible consideration in its own right. It could bear on finality, public resources, evidential availability and whether a fair reconsideration remained possible. The court declined to adopt the wider view in R (Haworth) v Northumbria Police Authority that delay was relevant only to the merits or fairness of reconsideration.
5. The length of delay, the unavailability of the original medical witnesses and the less than clear-cut merits rationally supported the conclusion that a fair reconsideration could not be conducted. The predominant purpose was to avoid an unfair reconsideration process, not to defeat a valid pension claim.
6. The reference to being keeper of the public purse concerned the subsidiary cost of an unfair and wasteful process, not the cost of paying an award properly due. The reasons were concise but sufficient.

First-instance judicial review in the Administrative Court. No earlier court decision in the same proceedings is stated.