LF v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions & Anor (CSM)

This is an appeal against the decision of the Teeside First-Tier Tribunal (F-tT). Mr LF is the Appellant in these proceedings and the non-resident person for the purposes of the child maintenance regime. Mrs LF is the Second Respondent and the person with care within that regime. The First Respondent is the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions who is responsible for the Child Maintenance Service (CMS). Child maintenance was payable by the Appellant in relation to two children, born in January 2000 and July 2001.

The case relates to decisions of the Child Maintenance Service on 7 March 2018 and 22 May 2018. The issue in the case is the date on which an increase in weekly child maintenance liability to £137.03 should take effect. That increase was the result of CMS using the Appellant’s current income, rather than his historic income. The Respondents say that the increase should take effect from the effective date of the initial maintenance calculation (the date that any child maintenance was first due), 18 January 2017. The Appellant’s position has varied over time, but his position now is that the increase should take effect from some months later, 30 August 2017. The legal issues which arise include: the date on which a revision for official error takes effect, whether decisions by the Secretary of State were nullities, and whether a refusal to supersede can be revised or official error.

CMS calculates weekly maintenance on the basis of either historic or current income, applying the Child Support Act 1991 (‘the 1991 Act’) and the Child Support Maintenance Calculation Regulations 2012 (‘the 2012 Regulations’). Regulations 34(1) & (2) set out the following:

The central dates are :

This case has had a lengthy and unfortunate journey through the tribunals thus far. After two adjourned hearings in the F-tT the case was heard on 18 June 2019. An appeal against the decision was allowed by the Upper Tribunal (CCS/70/2020) and the case was remitted to the F-tT in May 2021. For various reasons that rehearing was not heard until 18 May 2022, almost three years after the first F-tT decision.

The F-tT in May 2022 was invited by the Secretary of State to find that the decisions of 7 March 2018 and 22 May 2018 were nullities, and did so.

The F-tT’s Decision Notice following the 18 May 2022 hearing said that the Appellant was liable to pay £137.03 weekly child maintenance from 21 March 2017.

The F-tT said in the Decision Notice that:

The F-tT changed its position in the Statement of Reasons. That records: ‘The decision that should have been made is that [the Appellant] was liable to child maintenance from effective date 18/01/2017 based on gross income of £45,639.12 leading to a liability of child maintenance of £137.03 per week from effective date 18/01/2017.’ The F-tT’s new position was more adverse to the Appellant than the Decision Notice, backdating the increase in child maintenance for a further two months.

The F-tT invited either party to apply for its decision to be set aside on the basis that its Statement of Reasons was not in accordance with the Decision Notice. Neither party made that application. The Appellant applied for permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal which was granted by District Tribunal Judge Mahil on 25 November 2022 on the basis of that accepted error in the F-tT’s findings. The notice of permission was not issued to the parties until 4 January 2023.

Upper Tribunal Judge Hemingway admitted the appeal on 8 June 2023, extending time.

The Appellant’s initial grounds of appeal were:

The Secretary of State made submissions dated 14 July 2023 which supported the appeal on ground C alone, and invited me to remit the case to the F-tT. The Secretary of State’s position has subsequently changed.

The Appellant made further submissions dated 26 November 2023. He said that the appeal is against the decision made on 7 March 2018, and he expanded on his argument in relation to inaccurate information. The Appellant raised further issues in relation to CMS’s management of the mandatory reconsideration process and raises a number of factual matters. The Appellant sought an oral appeal hearing.

The Second Respondent made submissions received on 26 October 2023; these are factual submissions which do not relate to the points of law under consideration although it is clear that the Second Respondent does not agree that there has been any error of law and, understandably, seeks certainty and a fast resolution.

I made directions on 13 March 2024 in which I set out my provisional view relating to errors of law and directed an oral hearing. I noted that ‘the quality of SSWP’s engagement with the case to date has not been adequate. Written submissions have often been erroneous and/or incomplete. These further written submissions, and oral submissions at the hearing, must be of a better quality in order to properly assist the Upper Tribunal, and must be closely tethered to the statutory framework and statutory language.’

I directed submissions on the following points. The Secretary of State was required to make submissions on these points, and other parties were permitted to:

I received written submissions as directed from the First Respondent. I received further submissions from the Appellant. I did not receive further submissions from the Second Respondent.

I held a hearing on 23 April 2024 at Field House, London. The Appellant represented himself. The Secretary of State was represented by Mr Simpson of counsel. I had expedited the hearing, given the previous delays in the case, and am grateful to the parties for facilitating the tight timetable which I put in place.

The Appellant’s position remained that the F-tT had made errors of law. The Appellant invited me to remit the case to the F-tT for a further decision. The Appellant submitted that the correct decision was that the increased payment should be backdated to 30 August 2017; in other words that CMS had made the correct decision on 7 March 2018, and wrongly changed that decision on 22 May 2018. The Appellant maintained that some of the decisions made by CMS in this case were nullities, but (and I mean no criticism by this) was not clear about what he meant by that, nor what the result would be.

The Secretary of State’s position was also that the F-tT had made errors of law. The Secretary of State invited me to remake the F-tT’s decision. The Secretary of State submitted that the correct decision was that the increased payment should be backdated to the start of child maintenance payments,18 January 2017. The Secretary of State no longer maintains that any of the decisions in this case were nullities.

The F-tT made an error of law in the procedure it adopted when it changed its mind on the key issue at the point of drafting the Statement of Reasons. The resulting position is that there is a conflict on the key issue between the Decision Notice (which records that the F-tT’s decision is a supersession with an effective date of 21 March 2017) and the Statement of Reasons (which records that the F-tT’s decision is a revision with an effective date of 18 January 2017).

A First-tier Tribunal may set aside a decision if it is in the interests of justice to do so (Rule 37 Tribunal Procedure (First-Tier Tribunal) (Social Entitlement Chamber) Rules 2008) or undertake a review of a decision on an application for permission to appeal where it is satisfied that there was an error of law in the decision (Rule 40 Tribunal Procedure (First-Tier Tribunal) (Social Entitlement Chamber) Rules 2008). A review can lead to amended reasons or correction of a decision, which must then be notified to the parties under Rule 40.

In this case, although the F-tT identified an error at the stage of producing a Statement of Reasons, the F-tT did not set aside its decision under Rule 37, nor undertake a review of its decision on receipt of the appeal notice. There was therefore no amendment to the initial decision notice within the procedure allowed for by Rule 40.

The result is that there are two conflicting decisions made by the same F-tT, and both are in existence. Both the Appellant and the Secretary of State submit that an error of law arises. The Secretary of State helpfully draws my attention to LA v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (ESA) [2014] UKUT 0482 (AAC) 11 in which Tribunal Judge Mitchell stated that:

I agree with Judge Mitchell’s approach. The inconsistency between the Notice and the Statement amounts to a material error of law.

Error 2: Revision for error of law of a decision preceding the error.

The F-tT found that there had been an official error on 21 March 2017, the date on which CMS received current earnings figures from the Appellant, in that the information was not considered and applied to the calculation of child maintenance liability. The F-tT then revised a decision which pre-dated the official error, being the decision of 13 February 2017. The F-tT’s decision was summarised this way at [88] Statement of Reasons: ‘the Tribunal considers that there was a official error by CMS i.e. a failure to consider the current earnings figures received from the Appellant on 21 March 2017. Therefore, CMS was empowered to make an anytime revision of the decision dated 13 February 2017’.

Regulation 14 of the 2012 Regulations sets out various grounds for revision of certain child support decision. One of the grounds is 14(1)(e): ‘If the decision arose from official error’. An official error is defined as ‘an error made by an officer of the Department for Work and Pensions or HMRC acting as such to which no person outside the Department or HMRC materially contributed, but excludes any error of law which is shown to have been an error by virtue of a subsequent decision of the Upper Tribunal or the court.’ Where there has been an official error, regulation 14(1) permits revision of ‘A decision to which section 16(1A) of the 1991 Act applies’. Subsection 16(1A) of the 1991 Act lists ‘a decision of the Secretary of State under section 11,12 or 17’. Those sections in turn relate to maintenance calculations (s11), default and interim maintenance decisions (s12) and supersession (s17).

I am not satisfied that there was an official error on 21 March 2017. The purported error was that CMS did not act on information which it received that day about current income. There is no obligation for CMS to act on new information on the same day that it receives it, and so a failure to act immediately does not amount to official error.

Even if there was an official error on 21 March, it did not empower the F-tT, standing in the shoes of the Secretary of State, to revise a decision which was made a few weeks previously. At one point in the oral hearing, Mr Simpson seemed to be suggesting that the 2012 Regulations should be read as permitting revision of a decision which pre-dated the official error, as otherwise unfairness would arise. I cannot accept that. The wording of the 2012 Regulations is plain, and decisions can be revised if ‘the decision arose from official error’. A finding of official error does not open a magic portal through which all decisions in a case can be changed; it is only the decision which arose from the official error which can be revised.

If there was an official error on 21 March 2017, the decision of 13 February 2017 did not arise from that official error and could not have done because it occurred before the official error. It was a material error of law for the F-tT to revise the decision of 13 February 2017 on the basis of an official error on 21 March 2017.

The F-tT determined that the decision of 7 March 2018 was a nullity because that decision had not been notified to the parties in a written decision letter. The F-tT determined that the decision of 22 May 2018 was also a nullity because it purported to revise the decision of 7 March 2018.

The F-tT reached their conclusion with the agreement of all parties. Upper Tribunal Judge Sutherland Williams had raised the possibility in his decision of 4 May 2021 (relating to a previous appeal in this case) that the parties might think regulation 14A of the 2012 Regulations 2012 affected the validity of the decision dated 7 March 2018.

The F-tT gave limited reasons at paragraph 66 and 67 of the Statement of Reasons for finding that two decisions were nullities:

The Secretary of State now submits to the Upper Tribunal that the decisions were not nullities, saying in written submissions: ‘although the 7th March 2018 decision was invalid until notified to the parties, it was not a nullity. The genesis of the 22^nd May 2018 decision appears to have been a late recognition that the 7^th March 2018 decision had not been notified to the parties and that the more efficient remedial step was not to send the 7^th March 2018 decision (amended as necessary to preserve e.g. appeal rights) but to give effect to the original 7^th March 2018 decision by sending it to the parties as if a decision made afresh on 22^nd May 2018. On the face of it, there is no obvious basis upon which the 22^nd May 2018 might be regarded as invalid, much less a nullity.’

The Appellant’s position did not change: he submitted at the oral hearing that the decisions were nullities. When I explored at the hearing what the Appellant meant by that, the Appellant submitted that I should find that the decision of 22 May 2018 should not stand, and the decision of 7 March 2018 was correct, although it was not properly notified.

The phraseology ‘nullity’ does not appear in the relevant legislation and it is not clear what the F-tT meant by using that phrase: did it mean that the decisions had no legal effect, were wrong, were not enforceable, were null before the F-tT had deemed them so, were null as a result of the F-tT deeming them so, or something else? Although it is not spelled out, it appears that the F-tT meant that the decisions were null or invalid per se, rather than being decisions which became invalid as a result of the F-tT ruling.

The general usage of the term ‘nullity’ in law is to mean a decision which does not exist and has no effect in law. It carries a hard edge: as Lord Reid said in Anisminic v Foreign Compensation Commission [1969] 2 AC 147, 170, ‘there are no degrees of nullity’. A logical consequence of the F-tT treating both the 7 March 2018 decision and the 22 May 2018 decisions as nullities would be that they did not exist as decisions under the 1991 Act. If that was the true position then the Appellant would not have had any rights of appeal against the Secretary of State’s determinations on those dates. The right to appeal to the F-tT in child support cases lies against decisions of the Secretary of State under various provisions (and against imposition of penalties and fees) under section 20 of the 1991 Act. No party has suggested at any stage that the Appellant does not have a right of appeal.

The F-tT appears to have made its finding about nullity on the basis that written notice of the 7 March 2018 decision was not given under regulation 14A of the 2012 Regulations, which in turn tainted the later decision. The F-tT was not invited to analyse regulation 14A of the 2012 Regulations which includes:

That regulation applies where a written notice has been given. It says nothing about the effects of not giving notice of a decision. It is not a basis for finding that lack of a notice makes a decision null.

The F-tT was not directed to relevant case law, including R(U) 7/81 where a Tribunal of Commissioners held that a failure to notify a decision in accordance with a statutory requirement did not render the decision invalid, and R(SB) 41/83 which followed the same course.

I agree with the approach taken in those cases. The decision of 7 March 2018 was not properly communicated, but it existed as a decision for various purposes including as a decision which could be appealed; it was not a nullity.

Given that the word ‘nullity’ has appeared in a number of F-tT decisions, and that the applicability of the term in this case was endorsed by the Secretary of State (until Mr Simpson came on board) it may be of assistance to make some more general comments about the concept.

The Supreme Court, in R (Majera) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] UKSC 46 made the observations below about terms such as ‘nullity’. The case involved a bail order which the Court of Appeal had held to be a nullity, in part because the order failed to require the detained person to present themselves to an officer as required by the relevant legislation. The judgment is relevant to administrative decisions as well as court orders. Extracts are set out below.

A three-judge panel of the Upper Tribunal in Information Commissioner v Malnick and the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments [2018] UKUT 72 (AAC) considered that the term ‘nullity’ may apply where the Information Commissioner acted entirely outside the statutory framework, but doubted the applicability of the term in other scenarios. The judges observed at [100] that :

It follows that the term ‘nullity’ will rarely be of use to the First-tier Tribunal (Social Security and Child Support). As observed above, it is a term of more obvious applicability in contract law than in this jurisdiction. It does not appear in relevant legislation or procedural rules.

In broad terms, it is unlikely to be appropriate to describe a social security or child support decision as ‘null’ on the basis that it was wrong, or was not notified, or was made on inapplicable grounds, or was made in error of law or was made without due process. Such a decision generally exists (and therefore cannot sensibly be called ‘null’) unless and until set aside by a tribunal or court. Even when such a decision is set aside by a tribunal or court, terminology such as ‘nullity’ and ‘invalidity’ is likely to lead to confusion rather than clarity.

In the context of this case, it was an error of law for the F-tT to label either decision as a nullity. The failure to notify parties of the 7 March 2018 decision did not make that decision null. Similarly, the later decision of 22 May 2018 was not rendered null as a result of being infected by the procedural failings in the March decision.

Other matters raised by the Appellant are not material errors of law.

Ground A relates to Judge Mahil’s statement that the Appellant did not comply with his duty to submit evidence of earnings. The basis for that finding is not clear, but if it was an error it was not material to the F-tT’s decision; the date on which the current income information was sent by the Appellant is not a date on which the F-tT based its decision. I note that the Secretary of State does not assert now that the Appellant had failed to comply with any requirements to submit information.

Ground B relates to the F-tT not directing CMS to make a decision regarding the issue of shared care. The Appellant’s position in relation to shared care remains unclear to me. It is not submitted to me that the F-tT should have made a determination about shared care, and the F-tT was not asked to make such a determination. It follows that the Appellant’s criticism of the F-tT in this regard is not relevant to whether the F-tT made a material error of law.

Ground C related to the F-tT not addressing the issue raised by the Appellant regarding incorrect, missing or false information from CMS. I note that the Secretary of State’s first written submissions to the Upper Tribunal submitted that the F-tT did not engage sufficiently and explicitly with this issue and invited me to set aside and remit on that basis. The Secretary of State did not consider whether any such error was material. By the time of the oral hearing, the Secretary of State was no longer maintaining that this was an error of law.

I have examined the Appellant’s documentation regarding material which is said to be incomplete, or missing, or inaccurate. Much of that information has since been provided. Some of the Appellant’s claims of inaccuracy are in reality factual disputes, or identify minor errors in paperwork. The Appellant has, however, identified a number of areas where material provided by the Secretary of State is inaccurate in significant respects.

The F-tT acknowledged that there was inaccurate material. The Statement of Reasons shows that in order to establish facts the F-tT went through the chronology of events with great care, eliciting appropriate information from the parties to fill any gaps and resolve uncertainties. The F-tT identified that material from the Secretary of State was at times inaccurate; for example in paragraph 29 of the Statement of Reasons the F-tT identified a CMS note which could not be relied on because of internally conflicting dates. In paragraph 34 of the Statement of Reasons, the F-tT noted that a significant event had been left out of a chronology provided by the Secretary of State. The F-tT said ‘The Tribunal agrees with [the Appellant] that this is one of numerous errors and omissions made by CMS in the appeal papers. This has consequently had an adverse effect on the clarity of the decision-making by CMS on this case.’ There was no requirement for the F-tT to engage with each line of the Appellant’s lengthy submissions about missing and incomplete documentation. The F-tT engaged with the issue entirely appropriately, and plainly bore those difficulties in mind when reaching decisions about the chronology of events. This ground of appeal is not an error of law, and in any event had no material bearing on the outcome of the appeal, given that the F-tT’s decision rested on a limited number of events which it was able to make clear findings about.

Other matters raised by the Appellant in submissions to this tribunal relating to the CMS’s handling of the mandatory reconsideration process, and factual matters, are also not errors of law.

As there were material errors of law in the F-tT’s decision, I set that decision aside.

The Secretary of State’s initial submissions to the Upper Tribunal asked for the case to be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal, without any reasons given. The Secretary of State’s position now is that I should remake the decision, given that findings of fact have been made, that the specialist jurisdiction of the F-tT is not required, and given the overriding objective. The Appellant submitted that the case should be remitted to the F-tT so that his appeal rights could be preserved.

I have determined that I will remake the decision. I have taken that course in line with the overriding objective. Although the chronology is complex, the matter in issue is limited to determining the date of an increase in child maintenance, and many areas of disputed fact are not relevant to that issue. The central facts which are relevant to this case are all agreed. There is no need to use the specialist knowledge of the First-tier Tribunal to determine the relevant facts. There is already sufficient evidence on all relevant points, there are full submissions from all parties, and this case is extremely old. The fair and just course is to remake the decision.

This appeal is allowed. I remake the decision which the Secretary of State should have made on 7 March 2018 as revised on 22 May.

Subsequent decisions by CMS which govern the period after 18 January 2018 are not affected by this appeal.

This is an appeal against a decision by the Secretary of State on 7 March 2018 as revised on 22 May 2018. The Appellant seeks to persuade me that it is an appeal against a decision by the Secretary of State on 7 March 2018, without reference to 22 May 2018. That cannot be right, as the Appellant agreed with the decision which was taken on 7 March 2018, which was that the increase in payments should take effect from 30 August 2017. The decision which the Appellant disagrees with is the revision of the 7 March 2018 decision, taken on 22 May 2018, to backdate those payments to the very start of child maintenance liability in January 2017.

I make the following findings of fact.

I invited submissions about whether there had been official error. The Secretary of State submits that there were official errors by the Secretary of State, and I agree. The Secretary of State submits that the official errors empower me to backdate the increased payment to the start of the maintenance liability, 18 January 2017. I do not agree with that effective date.

The Secretary of State submits that there were official errors early in CMS’s dealings with this case, including:

The first action is arguably an official error; the second inaction is not, for the reasons I have already given. Whether they were official errors or not, I am not persuaded that they were official errors from which a decision arose which falls to be revised. Applying regulation 14 of the 2012 Regulations, only decisions under sections 11,12 and 17 of the 1991 Act which arose from an official error can be revised. There was no decision-making under those sections which arose from errors on 14 or 21 March. It follows that revision for official error is not permitted, even if there was official error on those days.

The Secretary of State also submits that there was an official error on 30 March 2017. I agree. That official error arose once CMS had been in possession of the current income for some days, and was asked by the Second Respondent to revisit its maintenance calculation, but still did nothing. That was the situation on 30 March 2017. There was an error on that day in failing to respond properly to the Second Respondent’s request and failing to act upon the updated income information which had been in the hands of CMS for nine days. That was an error made by an officer of Department for Work and Pensions. It was not contributed to by any person outside that Department; in particular, there is no dispute that both the First Respondent and Appellant provided accurate information to the best of their knowledge about the Appellant’s income. Neither of them contributed to the failure to investigate. It therefore falls within the definition of ‘official error’.

A direct result of the error was to refuse the First Respondent’s verbal application to increase child maintenance, and to maintain the existing level of child maintenance. That decision ‘arose from official error’ in the wording of regulation 14 of the 2012 Regulations.

What sort of decision was made on 30 March 2017? The Appellant submitted at the oral hearing that the Second Respondent was making a complaint on that day and, by implication, there was no decision. I do not agree. The request by the Second Respondent can properly be characterised as a request for supersession: although she would not have used those words she was plainly asking CMS to increase the maintenance assessment on the basis of current income, after the period for revision had expired.

Supersession was available to CMS on 30 March 2017. It was available under Regulation 17(1)(b) of the 2012 Regulations: ‘A decision mentioned in section 17(1) of the 1991 Act may be superseded by a decision of the Secretary of State, on an application or on the Secretary of State’s own initiate, where – ‘(b) the decision was made in ignorance of, or was based on a mistake as to, some material fact’.

The CMS official who liaised with the Second Respondent on 30 March 2017 decided not to increase the maintenance assessment. That amounted to a decision not to supersede.

Can that refusal to supersede be revised for official error? Where there has been an official error, regulation 14(1) permits revision of ‘A decision to which section 16(1A) of the 1991 Act applies’. Subsection 16(1A) of the 1991 Act refers to ‘a decision of the Secretary of State under section 11,12 or 17’. Judge Jacobs held in CCS/1282/2010 that a decision not to supersede can be revised because it is a decision under s17 of the 1991 Act. Judge Jacobs said at [9] that ‘the power to revise applies to ‘a decision…under section…17’: section 16(1A)(a). That is wide enough to cover both decisions to supersede and decisions not to supersede.’ The Secretary of State supported that position, submitting at the oral hearing that the power to revise for official error attached to the decision of 30 March 2017 (as well as to earlier decisions). I agree that the power to revise for official error attaches to a refusal to supersede; in order to decide whether to supersede or not, CMS must apply section 17 of the 1991 Act, and the ensuing decision is one made ‘under’ section 17 whether it is a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. It follows that the refusal to supersede can be revised for official error at any time.

Standing in the shoes of the Secretary of State, I revise the decision of 30 March 2017. I revise the decision on 30 March 2017, changing it from a decision not to supersede into a decision to supersede, on the basis that the initial decision (13 February 2017) was made in ignorance of the material fact of the Appellant’s current income. Current income differed from historic income by an amount that was at least 25% of the historic income. The maintenance calculation based on that current income has not been disputed; the figure is £137.03 per week.

The effective date of the revision and supersession decisions which I have made is governed by the 1991 Act and the 2012 Regulations. The higher level decision which I have made is a revision for official error, which revises the decision dated 30 March 2017. A revision generally takes effect on the date of the original decision which it is revising (unless the original decision had an incorrect effective date). The subsidiary decision which I have made is the changed decision of 30 March 2017; changed from a refusal to supersede into a supersession. A supersession effective date is governed by regulation 18 of the 2012 Regulations. It was a supersession made on application by one of the parties, and so under regulation 18(6)(a) it takes effect on the date of the application, which I have found to be 30 March 2017.

I also invited submissions on whether the Secretary of State should have taken a new supersession decision in March and May 2018. Standing in the Secretary of State’s shoes in March and May 2018 supersession was arguably available under regulation 17(1)(b) of the 2012 Regulations: ‘A decision mentioned in section 17(1) of the 1991 Act may be superseded by a decision of the Secretary of State, on an application or on the Secretary of State’s own initiate, where – ‘(b) the decision was made in ignorance of, or was based on a mistake as to, some material fact’. However, as revision for official error was also available in March and May 2018, supersession is barred under regulation 17(4).

The Appellant invites me to proceed on the basis of supersession. The Appellant invites me to make the same decision that the Secretary of State took on 7 March 2018: that there was a supersession with an effective date of 30 August 2018. The basis for supersession suggested by the Appellant is that there was a change of circumstances at around that time (change of circumstances being one route to supersession). The Appellant said that activity in August 2018 when the parties had been dealing with financial dispute resolution arising from their divorce, on the back of which the Second Respondent had contacted CMS with further detail about the Appellant’s earnings, amounted to a change in circumstances. I do not accept that. Details provided by the Second Respondent in August 2018 were not about anything new; it was simply that she had more evidence about what the Appellant had been earning. CMS already had that evidence, from the Appellant directly, but had not acted on it. The Appellant’s earnings had not changed, or at least not changed significantly. The matters described by the Appellant have no bearing on the maintenance calculation and cannot amount to a change in circumstances for the purposes of child support. In any event, as I have said, supersession is not an available decision in March and May 2018 given that revision for official error is available.

Shared care was not an issue before me, and no party suggested that it was. I understand that the F-tT may be seized of that issue now, but it is not a point for consideration here.

The Appellant wished me to consider matters which fall outside the jurisdiction of the Upper Tribunal. In particular, the Appellant wished me to listen to a recording of a call between him and a member of CMS. He asked me to make an order for CMS to deal with the issues he has raised in a document about inaccuracies and inconsistencies. He asked me to make an order for costs in relation to the time he has spent dealing with CMS. I understand why the Appellant asked for me to consider those issues, but none of them fall within this jurisdiction, and so I do not make any orders in relation to them.

This is not a forum to handle complaints about CMS. However, it is proper to record that the Secretary of State's actions have caused confusion, delay, and ensuing distress to both parents in this case. Decisions have been communicated with no clarity about their legal bases. It has not been clear whether decisions are supersessions or revisions, on what statutory grounds decisions were made, and on the basis of what facts. It has not been clear why decisions were held to be effective from certain dates. There has been inaccurate paperwork including misdated notes of telephone conversations. There has been incomprehensible correspondence sent to the parties and a failure to notify parties promptly about at least one decision. There has been a lack of clarity and consistency about the position on appeal and a wholesale failure to tether submissions to the statutory framework, with the result that the F-tT was not assisted with accurate submissions, and the first submissions to the Upper Tribunal were entirely unhelpful. Matters improved considerably only when the Upper Tribunal made directions and the Secretary of State instructed counsel, Mr Simpson, who made all efforts to assist the Upper Tribunal to find the correct legal route through the morass created by the Secretary of State. 

At the best of times is extremely difficult for parties in the child maintenance jurisdiction, who frequently do not have legal representation, to work out what has happened, and whether they have a proper basis for challenging a decision. Those difficulties are compounded by the sort of confusion and inconsistency which arose in this case. That in turn hampers the work of the tribunals which consider these cases. Improved clarity and consistency from CMS would be most welcome.