Speed v Teachers' Pensions & Or

An appeal from a Pensions Ombudsman determination under Pensions Schemes Act 1993, s 151(4), is confined to an identified point of law and cannot reopen matters for which permission was refused. A request to reinstate an ill-health pension may mean either a challenge to its original cessation or a fresh application for payment to resume. Where the latter is intended, the applicable regulations govern the application in force when it is made. A fresh application must comply with the requirements for a written application and supporting medical evidence. A communication stating that the applicant should reapply, while explaining practical difficulties in doing so, may properly be treated as no application having been made.

The appellant had been awarded an ill-health pension under the Teachers’ Pensions Regulations 1997 after leaving teaching. Teachers’ Pensions stopped payment in 2005 on the basis that he was no longer incapacitated. He later sought restoration of the pension and complained to the Pensions Ombudsman.

The Ombudsman treated the complaint as concerning a fresh application for the pension to restart, rather than a challenge to the 2005 decision, and concluded that no such application had been made. Permission to appeal to the High Court was granted only on whether that conclusion was legally open to the Ombudsman. The central issues were the meaning of reinstatement, the applicable regulations, and whether the appellant’s correspondence constituted an application.

1. The appeal was dismissed. Under s 151(4) of the Pensions Schemes Act 1993, an appeal from a Pensions Ombudsman determination lies only on a point of law. The limited permission granted excluded any challenge to the original 2005 decision to stop payment and to the Ombudsman’s conclusion that that issue was out of time.

2. The word reinstatement was ambiguous. It could describe a challenge to the original removal of the pension, or a fresh application for payment to resume after renewed incapacity. The Ombudsman was entitled to understand the appellant’s complaint as concerning the latter.

3. The appellant’s fresh application had to be assessed under the Teachers’ Pensions Regulations 2010, not the earlier 1997 Regulations. Regulation 68 expressly applied to ill-health pensions that became payable following applications received before 6 January 2007. Its effect was that, after cessation, payment could resume only if the conditions in that regulation and Schedule 7, paragraph 3(5), were satisfied, including permanent impairment of the ability to carry out any work by more than 90 per cent.

4. Regulation 107 required a written application, relevant information specified by the Secretary of State, and the necessary medical evidence. The appellant’s September 2013 email, read as a whole, indicated that he contemplated reapplying but was not then in a position to do so. It was therefore open to the Ombudsman to conclude that no application had been made.

5. The Regulations placed the evidential burden on the applicant. The court could identify no requirement for Teachers’ Pensions or the Department for Education to commission or fund medical reports, although that observation was unnecessary to the disposal of the appeal.

• High Court (Chancery Division): The appeal from the Pensions Ombudsman’s determination dated 10 June 2016 was dismissed. Permission to appeal had been limited to whether the Ombudsman was entitled to find that no application for reinstatement had been made.
• Pensions Ombudsman: The complaint was not upheld.