Secretary of State for Work and Pensions v E

A claim for Bereavement Support Payment must be made in the prescribed manner and within the prescribed time. Contact with the Tell Us Once service, which is an information-sharing service rather than a claims service, does not amount to a claim. The service has no general statutory obligation to advise a person of a possible benefit claim, and failure to give such advice does not itself establish negligence or discrimination. A statutory time limit is not incompatible with Article 1 of the First Protocol, read with Article 14, merely because a claimant has mental health difficulties or was affected by the Covid pandemic. The Upper Tribunal may not use section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 to create a discretion to extend a time limit where the legislation contains none.

E’s husband died on 11 September 2020. She used the Tell Us Once service shortly afterwards but did not claim Bereavement Support Payment. She made a claim in 2024, outside the applicable periods. The First-tier Tribunal treated the earlier contact as an effective claim, relying on the service’s failure to signpost the benefit, alleged negligence and disability discrimination, and the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Secretary of State appealed, contending that the First-tier Tribunal had misapplied the statutory claim requirements and the Convention rights. The central issues were whether Tell Us Once contact could constitute a claim or justify treating a late claim as timely, whether the pandemic altered the position, and whether the statutory time limits were incompatible with Convention rights.

1. Appeal allowed. The First-tier Tribunal’s decision involved an error of law and was set aside under section 12(2)(a), (b)(i) and (3) of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007. The Upper Tribunal remade the decision and dismissed E’s appeal against the Secretary of State’s decision of 28 August 2024.
2. Bereavement Support Payment is subject to the statutory claim requirement. Under section 1(1) of the Social Security Administration Act 1992, entitlement depends on a claim made in the prescribed manner and within the prescribed time. The relevant regulations provided periods running from the death, with the claim extinguished at the latest after 21 months. E made neither a written nor a telephone claim within those periods.
3. Tell Us Once transmits information concerning births and deaths and helps notify public bodies. It is not a claims service. No statutory obligation required it to refer users to benefits or complete a benefit claim for them. Contact with that service therefore did not satisfy the statutory requirements.
4. The First-tier Tribunal also erred in treating the absence of benefit advice as negligence or a failure to make reasonable adjustments. Public bodies must make anticipatory adjustments for persons who may use their services, but that obligation does not require anticipation of every adjustment arising from an individual’s particular circumstances. The service was not authorised to determine the claim.
5. The Covid pandemic created practical difficulties but not an insuperable obstacle to discovering or making a claim. Article 1 of the First Protocol conferred no entitlement where domestic conditions of entitlement were unmet. The time limit did not directly discriminate against persons with mental health difficulties. In any event, the measure was justified under the wide margin applicable to social and economic policy and was not manifestly without reasonable foundation.
6. Section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 permits compatible interpretation where possible; it does not permit the Tribunal to create a discretion to extend a time limit where the statutory scheme contains none. The facts did not justify disapplying the time limit.

• Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber): appeal allowed; the First-tier Tribunal decision of 3 June 2025 was set aside for error of law and the Secretary of State’s decision was restored.
• First-tier Tribunal, Social Entitlement Chamber: appeal allowed and E was treated as having made a timely claim for Bereavement Support Payment.