PR v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions & Anor

A retrospective restoration of a severe disability premium does not itself extend the statutory limit for backdating housing benefit. Under regulation 83 of the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006, a claim made after the Severe Disability Gateway may ordinarily be backdated by no more than one month where continuous good cause is shown.

The special date-of-claim rule in regulation 83(5)(a) applies only where there has been a qualifying claim for income-related employment and support allowance. A request to revise an existing award by adding a severe disability premium is not such a claim. Whether a document is a benefit claim depends on its substance, read in its factual context, rather than its form.

The appellant had lost entitlement to a severe disability premium following the termination of her personal independence payment. The later success of her appeal concerning that payment resulted in the retrospective restoration of both the payment and the premium in her income-related employment and support allowance.

After the Severe Disability Gateway opened, the local authority awarded housing benefit from 17 June 2019. It treated the July 2019 claim as backdated by the maximum one month. The appellant sought an earlier award from 16 January 2019, the date the Gateway began.

The First-tier Tribunal dismissed her appeal and upheld the local authority's decision. On appeal, the central issues were whether regulation 83(5)(a) of the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006 provided an earlier claim date, and whether an October 2018 form remained an undecided housing-benefit claim.

1. Appeal dismissed. The First-tier Tribunal made no error of law in confirming housing benefit from 17 June 2019, but not from 16 January 2019.

2. Regulation 83(12) and (12A) of the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006 governed the backdating of the July 2019 claim. Although the appellant had continuous good cause, the statutory calculation limited backdating to one month before the claim. The resulting entitlement began on the following Monday, 17 June 2019.

3. Regulation 83(5)(a) did not provide an alternative route to an earlier date. Its operation required a qualifying claim for income-related employment and support allowance. The representative's December 2019 request to add the severe disability premium was a request to revise an existing award. It was not a claim for benefit within the relevant definition in the Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations 1987, which excludes other revision or supersession applications.

4. Any inadequacy in the First-tier Tribunal's reasons on that issue was immaterial because the appellant's argument under regulation 83(5)(a) failed in law.

5. The October 2018 form was, in substance, a notification of changed circumstances for council-tax reduction, not a housing-benefit claim. In any event, its status was not an issue before the First-tier Tribunal and the Upper Tribunal had no jurisdiction to determine it. The judge observed that the statutory scheme gave no other transitional route to an earlier housing-benefit award on these facts.

• Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber): appeal dismissed; the First-tier Tribunal's decision involved no error of law.
• First-tier Tribunal (Social Entitlement Chamber): on 18 January 2021, dismissed the appellant's appeal against the local authority's decision and upheld housing benefit from 17 June 2019.