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Home >> Publications >> Annual and Special Reports >> Annual Report 2004/2005 >> 7. Social Security, Pensions and Criminal Injuries Compensation

7. Social Security, Pensions and Criminal Injuries Compensation

Visit to Jobcentre Plus in Reading

1.  We reported last year on a meeting our Social Affairs Committee had with policy officials from the Department for Work and Pensions to discuss the NAO's Report "Getting it right, putting it right Improving decision-making and appeals in social security benefits". Following the meeting the officials facilitated a visit by two of our members and a member of our secretariat to the Jobcentre Plus Office in Reading.

2.  The issues that arose in the course of our discussions with the staff in Reading included:

  • Recruitment and retention of staff was a problem, resulting in a high staff turnover, which had a resulting negative impact on experience;
  • People who are dissatisfied with a decision on their claim were more likely to be advised to appeal rather than seek a review of the decision, which runs counter to the original policy intention;
  • The impact of targets for the numbers of decisions to be taken by each decision maker acted as a disincentive to quality, in that the targets led to decisions being taken on the basis of insufficient evidence;
  • There was a high incidence of appeals being struck out by tribunal Chairmen for want of prosecution, where they are not actively pursued by appellants;
  • Appeals Officers aimed to attend most oral hearings. However, since most appeals were dealt with on the basis of the papers alone the requirement to attend did not often arise;
  • Staff found the IT systems difficult to navigate and the different IT systems are not functionally compatible;
  • Tribunal decisions were routinely fed back to original decision-makers as a matter of course, which provided a useful learning tool;
  • Office managers perform a quality control check of decisions, the outcome of which is followed up in staff appraisals and used to identify training needs.

3.  We came away from our visit with a clearer picture of the difficulties that benefits staff faced on a daily basis, with an overall impression of staff who were well motivated to do a good job within an organisation hampered by a high staff turnover and low levels of overall experience.

Social Security, Child Support and Tax Credits (Appeals Amendments) Regulations 2004

4.  We were consulted by the Department for Work and Pensions on a package of amendments to the Social Security and Child Support (Decisions and Appeals) Regulations 1999. Among a number of fairly minor amendments the regulations provided for:

  • the removal of an existing provision for striking out misconceived or hopeless appeals, which the Social Security Commissioners had ruled unlawful, and
  • a new right of appeal against a decision that a claim for benefit is defective, which was previously not appealable, but which the Commissioners had ruled contrary to Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

5.  We particularly welcomed the removal of the misconceived appeals provision, which we had considered to be unworkable when we were first consulted on the Decision Making and Appeals Regulations in 1999. We also welcomed the proposal to provide for a right of appeal against a decision that a claim for benefit is defective, about which we also had misgivings in the original regulations.

The Child Trust Funds (Appeals) Regulations 2005

6.  We were also consulted on a number of sets of regulations in connection with the introduction of child trust funds, which were being introduced by the Inland Revenue. The regulations provided for appeals against decisions on child trust fund claims to be heard on a transitional basis by the Appeals Service, until such time as the reform of the Tax Commissioners was complete. Thereafter, there was an onward right of appeal on a point of law to the Social Security Commissioners. The regulations mirrored to a large extent the original Decision Making and Appeals Regulations.

7.  Our main concern related to the freestanding nature of the regulations. Whilst we understood the Department's reasons for adopting this approach, we pointed out the unfortunate consequence of proliferating the wide range of broadly similar secondary legislation with which appeal tribunals necessarily have to deal, and which, in due course, would need to be amended separately from the main Decision Making and Appeals Regulations. We also expressed concern about a provision pertaining to the constitution of the appeal tribunal to hear child trust fund appeals, which would normally comprise one legally qualified member, but could also include a financially qualified member, if, in the President's opinion, the appeal raised difficult financial issues. We would have preferred to see a rather more flexible approach, whereby the constitution of a tribunal was dependent on the issues at stake in an appeal, and with provision for the appellant to request an appeal to be heard by a two-person tribunal.

The Pensions Act 2004

8.  We explained in our last Report that the Pensions Bill, now the Pensions Act 2004, had created a number of new bodies which came under our jurisdiction, namely the Pensions Regulator, the Pensions Regulator Tribunal, the Board of the Pension Protection Fund and the Ombudsman for the Pension Protection Fund. During the past year we have been consulted by the Department for Work and Pensions on the procedural rules pertaining to these bodies.

The Pensions Regulator Tribunal

9.  We were consulted on the procedural rules for the Pensions Regulator Tribunal and the regulations governing the legal assistance scheme and costs arrangements. We were content with these provisions since they were closely modelled on the rules and legal assistance arrangements for the Financial Services and Markets Tribunals, on which we commented extensively a few years ago.

The Board of the Pension Protection Fund

10.  The Pensions Act 2004 established the Board of the Pension Protection Fund (the PPF Board), which will pay compensation to members of eligible occupational pension schemes where an employer becomes insolvent and the scheme has insufficient assets to pay benefits at a level at least equal to the amount the Pension Protection Fund would provide by way of compensation.

11.  We were consulted on the regulations governing the review and reconsideration of reviewable matters by the PPF Board. This comprised a two stage internal review process, which was broadly equivalent to the procedures currently set out in the internal dispute resolution procedures applying to occupational pension schemes generally. The Department envisaged that the majority of reviews would be cleared satisfactorily at the first stage and that a second reconsideration stage would only be required for more complex cases. Cases which are not resolved satisfactorily through the two-stage process can be referred for independent review by the Pension Protection Fund Ombudsman, which is dealt with in paragraphs 14 & 15 below.

12.  We raised a number of points in connection with the draft regulations:

  • We enquired how we would exercise oversight of the new PPF Board since it was not envisaged that there would be any oral hearings and suggested that we should be permitted to attend any meetings of the Board's Reconsideration Committee. We also suggested that the PPF Board should be required to publish an Annual Report which would, among other things, provide the necessary degree of transparency in respect of the Board's work and operations.
  • We were concerned at the lack of any provision for oral hearings and urged that, until such time as it became clearer whether there would in fact be a need for oral hearings, it would be better to make some provision rather than, at a later date, regret not having made any provision at all.
  • We raised a question about the open-ended nature of some of the time limits, in particular with regard to whether they would be workable.

13.  We received a helpful reply from the Department who agreed that our members should be permitted to attend any meeting of the PPF Board's Reconsideration Committee. Officials also confirmed that the Board would be required to produce an Annual Report, which would be laid before each House of Parliament. With regard to oral hearings officials explained that there were no plans for the PPF Board to hold oral hearings, but that there would be provision for the PPF Ombudsman to hold oral hearings when dealing with reviewable matters that are referred to him. In respect of open-ended time limits, they explained that setting a maximum time limit for applications might prove to be too inflexible and they preferred to allow for late applications at any stage, leaving it open to the Board to take individual circumstances into account in deciding whether there were compelling reasons to allow a late application.

The Pension Protection Fund Ombudsman

14.  Finally, we were consulted on the regulations governing the Pension Protection Fund Ombudsman, to whom reference can be made from decisions of the PPF Board. The provisions relating to the PPF Ombudsman were broadly equivalent to those in place for the existing Pensions Ombudsman, who would also exercise the PPF Ombudsman's jurisdiction.

15.  We were broadly content with the draft provisions, subject to a few minor points:

  • We were pleased to note the provision for oral hearings, which were at the PPF Ombudsman's discretion, but urged that any of the parties should have the right to request an oral hearing and that the PPF Ombudsman should be required to consider the request and give reasons for any failure to accede to it.
  • We also urged that the provision permitting members of the Council to attend any oral hearing should be clarified to put beyond any doubt that our members may also be present at the deliberation stage of an oral hearing.
  • Finally, we urged that the time limit for the PPF Ombudsman to reach a determination be monitored closely to ensure that this did not have the effect of giving PPF Ombudsman cases priority over Pensions Ombudsman cases (where there was no equivalent time limit in operation).

16.  We were pleased that the Department agreed to provide for any of the parties to request an oral hearing and for the PPF Ombudsman to consider such a request, and to amend the provision relating to our attendance at oral hearings to enable us to be present during the course of any deliberations involving the PPF Ombudsman and his staff, which might take place immediately after an oral hearing.

The Appeals Service

17.  The President of Appeal Tribunals, His Honour Judge Harris, had cause to mention again the continuing decline in the attendance of Presenting Officers at appeal tribunal hearings in his Report for 200304 on standards of decision-making by the Secretary of State. In our last Report we mentioned the encouraging response we had received from the then Secretary of State, the Rt. Hon. Andrew Smith MP, to a letter from our Chairman raising our considerable concern about this matter. In his letter the Secretary of State acknowledged the seriousness of our (and Judge Harris's) concerns and undertook to remedy the situation by asking his Department's agencies to take steps to reverse the decline in attendance. We have been pleased to learn that the President's Report for 20042005 shows that the downward trend in attendance has been reversed. However, the rate of increase is small (24% to 27% of hearings) and we hope this can be improved further.

18.  We have had a good deal of contact with the Appeals Service during the year, in addition to our usual programme of visits to tribunal hearings. Our Chairman had a meeting with Sir Leonard Peach, following his appointment as a non-executive director of the Appeals Service. The Chairman also had a meeting with Dr Christina Townsend, shortly after her appointment as the new Chief Executive of the Appeals Service. Dr Townsend also had a meeting with our Social Affairs Committee to discuss her priorities as Chief Executive and the preparations that were underway for the Appeals Service's transfer to the new Tribunals Service.

Consultation on Form TAS1

19.  We were consulted by the Appeals Service in connection with a review of the TAS1, which is the form sent to customers on receipt of an appeal. As part of this review a member of our secretariat took part in a workshop at a meeting of the Appeals Service's National Customer Representative Liaison Forum. Among the views we put forward were:

  • The form was not user friendly, either in format or content. It contained too much information squeezed into too few pages, with small typeface, which made it difficult to read, particularly for people with visual impairment. We suggested that better use of colour and highlighting to emphasise key points would make the form more user-friendly.
  • The first question in the form "Do you want to withdraw your appeal?" was too negative and might have the effect of discouraging appeals from people who might have good cause to appeal.
  • Because of the policy whereby appellants are required to "opt in" to an oral hearing, the question about whether a customer wished to have an oral hearing needed to be supported by an explanation that opting for an oral hearing increased the likelihood of a successful appeal. There also needed to be a better explanation of the term "hearing on the papers", which could be meaningless to a lay person.
  • The "help and advice" section of the form needed to be given greater emphasis, either through better highlighting or a more prominent position.

20.  We have been pleased to note the constructive way in which the Appeals Service has addressed our views.

Social Security and Child Support Commissioners

21.  The Chief Social Security and Child Support Commissioner, His Honour Judge Hickinbottom, consulted us on draft proposals concerning (i) development and training and (ii) mentoring and appraisal of the Social Security and Child Support Commissioners. We welcomed these initiatives and offered a few suggestions on the draft proposals for Judge Hickinbottom's consideration. The new schemes came into operation in January 2005 and we will take the opportunity to establish how they are operating at our next visit to a Commissioner's hearing.

Pensions Appeal Tribunals

The Pensions Appeal Tribunals (Armed Forces and Reserve Forces Compensation Scheme) (Rights of Appeal) Regulations 2005

22.  We were consulted by officials in the Ministry of Defence on proposals pertaining to a new right of appeal to the Pensions Appeal Tribunals in respect of the new compensation scheme introduced under the Armed Forces Compensation Act 2004. The draft regulations provided for a right of appeal against a "specified decision" (being a decision which determines whether an award of benefit is payable or the amount payable under an award of benefit). The regulations also provided that a decision to make an interim award of benefit (which could be payable for up to a maximum of two years) or to suspend benefit was not a specified decision and was therefore not appealable.

23.  We expressed concern at the generic approach to defining a "specified decision", which we considered to be so broadly drawn as to make it unclear as to what is or is not an appealable decision. It was unclear whether, for example, a decision of non-entitlement to benefit would be appealable. We urged that the right of appeal should be more closely allied to the Articles in the compensation scheme. Whilst we noted the Department's assurance that the new rights of appeal were every bit as generous as those under the current war pensions scheme, we found it difficult to concur with that view given the lack of transparency of the new approach to appeal rights. We also expressed concern at the proposal that a decision to suspend benefit should not be an appealable decision without any qualification as to the length of, or reason for, the suspension.

Criminal Injuries Compensation Appeals Panel

24.  Two members of our Secretariat attended the annual meeting of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Appeals Panel User Forum, which was well attended by a wide range of user representative groups. There was a varied and interesting agenda and members participated actively in the meeting. The meeting included a demonstration of the new CICAP website, including a "virtual tour" of the tribunal room, which first time users of CICAP would find particularly helpful. This appears to us to be an example of best practice in tribunal websites which others may wish to consider following.

25.  During the year our Chairman and one of the members of our Scottish Committee had a meeting with the Chairman of CICAP, Mr Roger Goodier. Among the issues discussed were:

  • the arrangements for the transfer of CICAP to the new Tribunals Service, which is due to take place in 2006;
  • the initiatives which were being put in place to manage CICAP's workload more efficiently in the light of a 12% cut in its budget;
  • the inter-relationship between CICAP and the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, with particular reference to the waiting times for cases to reach CICAP, which had been perceived as a problem at a visit to a CICAP hearing by one of our members;
  • the re-appointment of panel members and the need for additional legally-qualified Chairs to meet an increasing workload;
  • the new appraisal system for panel members, which had been introduced in 2004, and which had been evaluated and found to be operating effectively.
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