“It is not really appropriate to talk in terms of a defect in the decision of16 July 2003 . There was nothing wrong with it as a determination on the question of living together as husband and wife, as one building block as I put it at the end of paragraph 13 of CIS/1720/2004, that might, with other determinations, have built to a decision altering the claimant’s entitlement to income support. It is simply that, if it is contended that the decision altered the claimant’s entitlement to income support in the periods in question or was a revision or supersession within the terms of section 71(5A), it gets nowhere near having that effect. And no process of the correcting or ignoring of defects can alter that conclusion. Using the terminology of R(IB) 2/04, if it is contended that the decision had that effect, it had so little connection to the legal powers to produce that effect that it was not a decision of that kind at all. The decision did not purport to alter the claimant's entitlement to income support at all.” 30. So how do those principles apply on the facts of this case? I am satisfied here that there was a valid outcome decision taken on12 October 2006 . I say that for several reasons. The DWP’s letter to the claimant was clear enough; having relayed the “building block” decision about living together, it continued “This means that from10/10/1999 we cannot pay you Income Support because your partner is in full time work." It is difficult to read that as anything other than the notification of an outcome decision about her entitlement to benefit for a past period. Certainly the claimant understood it in those terms, and reasonably so, and she promptly challenged it. 31. The terms of the DWP submission to Tribunal 1 do not help the Secretary of State, not least as that document then goes on to conclude that “[the claimant] is not entitled to Income Support because the conditions specified bySection 124 of the Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 are not satisfied”
“I think it best not to speculate about how the Anufrijeva principle might operate in other circumstances. I have no doubt that the central importance given in that case to whether a person is in a position to challenge through legal process a decision that would affect his or her rights is reinforced in the case of a social security decision that purports to take away entitlement for a past period, especially where benefit has been paid for that period.” 37. In the present case, of course, the decision had been communicated; the claimant was left in no doubt that the Secretary of State had decided that she was not entitled to income support for the past period as from October 1999. This affected her rights and she duly appealed. 38. In summary, therefore, in a case such as this the formal position is that the decision maker should (i) review the evidence relating to “living together” and make appropriate findings of fact; (ii) make a “building block” determination about that issue; (iii) review the evidence about income support entitlement and make appropriate findings of fact; (iv) make an outcome decision on that issue; and (v) send a written notice of that appealable outcome decision to the claimant. It may well be that DWP procedures require there to be a written record of each stage of this process. 39. In this context, however, one must be realistic about the way in which DWP local offices operate and the pressures that its staff work under. In the present case we have on file a written record of stages (i) and (ii) of this sequence together with stage (v). The absence of a written record of stages (iii) and (iv) does not mean that those stages (and the supersession process that they represent) did not take place. On the contrary, it may well be that the decision maker in question did not actually commit stages (iii) and (iv) to writing in the form of an office note. However, in my judgment it is highly probable that the decision maker made the entitlement decision, having reviewed the evidence, and then simply took a shortcut. In other words, she took the pragmatic view that there was no need for her to make any further record of the fact that she had made a supersession decision on entitlement. Rather, it was sufficient simply to leave a copy on file of the letter to the claimant, which expressed the outcome decision in plain English. That letter expressly referred to the fact that Mr S was in full-time work (a fact which was irrelevant to stages (i) and (ii) but highly pertinent to stages (iii) and (iv)) as the reason why “we cannot pay you Income Support” (in other words, you have had no entitlement since October 1999). 40. For completeness, before leaving this point I should deal with an issue raised by the District Tribunal Judge in his purported grant of permission to appeal. He accepted (contrary to my conclusion above) that the Secretary of State was probably right to argue now that there had never been a proper outcome decision. He then went on to ask “Has the Commissioner, in CIS/573/2008, perfected the decision that the Secretary of State now submits is fatally flawed in such a way that I could safely proceed to make the decision that I did?” 41. The short answer to that now hypothetical question is No. A decision is either an outcome decision (and so subject to appeal) or it is not. As Mr Commissioner Mesher held in R(IS) 13/05 (see paragraph 29 above) “no process of the correcting or ignoring of defects can alter that conclusion.”
“(2) If and to the extent that regulations so provide, any finding of fact or other determination embodied in or necessary to such a decision, or on which such a decision is based, shall be conclusive for the purposes of— (a) further such decisions; (b) decisions made under the Child Support Act; and (c) decisions made under the Vaccine Damage Payments Act.” 49. Some limited provision has been made under section 17(2) (see for example regulation 10 of theSocial Security and Child Support (Decisions and Appeals) Regulations 1999 (SI 1999/991)). However, the general principle remains as before, namely that while decisions are final (see section 17(1)) a person or tribunal making a subsequent decision is entitled to rely on an earlier finding of fact but is not bound to do so. 50. In an ideal world, of course, the same tribunal should perhaps normally hear both the entitlement and the overpayment recoverability decisions at the same time. However, if for whatever reason the issues become separated, it is entirely feasible that the tribunal hearing the appeal against the overpayment recoverability decision may reach a different conclusion on the underlying facts at issue in the entitlement decision to the tribunal which heard that earlier appeal. There is a well-established line of Commissioners’ decisions supporting this analysis: see e.g. CIS/1263/1997, CIS/1330/2002 (at paragraphs 15-19), CDLA/2328/2006 (at paragraph 30) and CA/2650/2006 (at paragraphs 16-19). Indeed, Mr Commissioner May QC, whilst not referring to CIS/4423/2006, has since accepted, albeit “with considerable reluctance”, a submission made on behalf of the Secretary of State in a later case that “while, in relation to the determination of fact in relation to whether the claimant and the named man were living together as man and wife, was final and conclusive for the purposes of entitlement, it was not so in relation to the issue of the disclosure of a material fact for the purposes of the overpayment decision made under section 71(5A) of theSocial Security Administration Act 1992 ” (see CIS/3512/2007 at paragraph 8). 51. I do not share Mr Commissioner May QC’s view that it is “absurd that the same issue of fact should be capable of being determined by two separate tribunals in a manner which is contradictory” (CIS/3512/2007 at paragraph 8). One reason is that, as a matter of principle, decisions of one First-tier Tribunal are not binding precedents for another tribunal at the same level, and certainly not as regards issues of fact. Another reason is that although the two tribunals may have to determine the same factual issues, they may not be doing so on the same evidence. For example, in the present case Tribunal 1 did not hear from Mr S, whereas Tribunal 2 did. In addition, the claimant at Tribunal 1 had denied that Mr S lived with her but had refused to give his address on the basis that this would have betrayed a confidence. Tribunal I found her explanation to be implausible; on the other hand, Mr S was at Tribunal 2 and gave evidence on oath about where he was actually living at various times which that tribunal accepted. 52. In conclusion, an entitlement decision necessarily establishes that there has been an overpayment, because it proves that the amount paid during a particular period was more than the claimant was entitled to. But it does not establish that the overpayment is recoverable. That requires a misrepresentation or failure to disclose a material fact. To decide whether that has occurred, the tribunal dealing with the overpayment recoverability decision must first establish what the true facts were. Inevitably this involves consideration of the same matters as were considered in the entitlement decision. However, when making findings of fact, the effect ofsection 17(2) of the 1992 Act is that the decision maker or tribunal dealing with the overpayment recoverability decision cannot be bound by the findings in relation to those facts made in the course of dealing with the entitlement decision. It follows that the District Tribunal Judge who constituted Tribunal 2 did not err in law on this point. He correctly directed himself that he was not bound by the findings of fact made by Tribunal 1. That leaves the final question, namely whether Tribunal 2’s reasons were adequate. Were the reasons given by Tribunal 2 adequate? The Secretary of State’s submission 53. The Secretary of State’s original grounds of appeal were confined to this issue. The Secretary of State argued as follows: “[Tribunal 1] provided a very comprehensive statement of its reasons for its decision. This was sufficient for the Commissioner to refuse leave to appeal without any further submissions from either the Secretary of State or the claimant. Although [Tribunal 2] has found, in connection with the overpayment, that the claimant was not living together as husband and wife with [Mr S], which it has the right to do it has not, I submit, provided an equally thorough explanation as to how or why it differs in its conclusions on the ‘living together’ determination from [Tribunal 2] or the Commissioner.”