IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL Case No: CTC/4192/2014

ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS CHAMBER

Before UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE KNOWLES QC

Decision:  The appeal is allowed. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal (the tribunal) sitting at Blackburn on 31 March 2014 under reference SC063/14/00027 involved the making of an error on a point of law. The tribunal’s decision is set aside and I make the decision in the following terms:

“As at the date of the decision under appeal, there were no grounds for holding that the Appellant did not satisfy the entitlement conditions for child tax credit on the basis that her daughter, A, was not a qualifying young person within the meaning of regulation 5(2) of the Child Tax Credit Regulations”.

REASONS FOR DECISION

1.        This is an appeal by the Appellant against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal (“the tribunal”) following a hearing on 31 March 2014. Permission to appeal was granted by me on 14 November 2014.

2.        No oral hearing of this appeal has been requested by either party and I am satisfied in all the circumstances that I can proceed to determine this appeal properly and justly without one. Following my grant of permission to appeal, the Respondent has filed helpful submissions supporting this appeal and inviting me to set aside the tribunal’s decision and remake it myself. The Appellant supports this course of action.

The First-tier Tribunal’s Decision

3.        On 14 January 2013 the Respondent decided that the Appellant’s award of child tax credit should be reduced because she had not provided evidence that her daughter, A, was in full-time non-advanced education or approved training. A was aged 19 years and 1 month at the time of the decision. On 15 July 2013 the Appellant appealed on the basis that her daughter was on an approved training course since her apprenticeship had been arranged through Blackburn College.

4.        On 31 March 2014 a tribunal heard the appeal in the absence of the Appellant who was recovering from surgery. The question for the tribunal on appeal was whether A satisfied the education or training condition at regulation 5(3)(a) or (ab) of the Child Tax Credit Regulations 2002. If either condition were satisfied, A was a qualifying young person within the meaning of regulation 5(2) and Child Tax Credit was payable in respect of her.

5.        The tribunal found that A was not in education at the material time so the condition in regulation 5(2)(a) was not satisfied.

6.        The tribunal also found that, whilst A was on an apprenticeship, this did not amount to “approved training” within the meaning of the applicable definition. The applicable definition of “approved training” is found in regulation 1(3) of the Child Benefit (General) Regulations 2006. Under that provision training which came within the heading of “Access to Apprenticeships” would be approved training. In reaching its decision the tribunal relied on the note of a telephone call dated 17 December 2013 in which the Head of Department at A’s college confirmed that A’s course was not part of the Access to Apprenticeships Scheme.

7.        As I observed when granting permission to appeal, there are in fact two routes to possible satisfaction of the approved training definition in regulation 1(3). The condition is satisfied when the young person in question is undertaking training which comes within the heading of “Access to Apprenticeships” or “Foundation Learning”.

8.        The tribunal seems to have appreciated this but, in a supplementary statement of reasons, explained that “Foundation Learning” was not relevant since it was not something that was included in the version of regulation 1(3) in force at the material time in this case.  

The Error of Law in this Appeal

9.        The Respondent accepts that the tribunal may have been led into an error of law by the Respondent’s own submission to the tribunal in which the definition of “approved training” was set out.  That included the sentence “from September 2013 Foundation Learning is treated as a Study Programme under the full-time non-advanced education condition.”

10.     That sentence was correct but seems to have led the tribunal into the belief that Foundation Learning was a form of training which did not exist prior to September 2013. This is incorrect since the definition of “approved training” contained in regulation 1(3) of the Child Benefit (General) Regulations 2006 refers to it. That definition was effective from 6 April 2012 by reason of the Child Benefit (General)(Amendment) Regulations 2006.

11.     The tribunal thus erred in law by failing to address whether A’s training constituted “Foundation Learning”. I note that the Respondent’s own submission to the tribunal failed to address this very same issue.

12.     I allow the appeal on this ground.

13.     In my grant of permission I identified a further ground of appeal but, given my decision on the above ground of appeal, it is no longer necessary for me to determine this.

Remaking the Decision

14.     The Respondent submits that, given the error of law made by both the tribunal and by the Respondent, it must follow whether the Respondent can realistically sustain its contention that, on 14 January 2013, there were reasonable grounds for believing that the Appellant did not satisfy the conditions for an award of child tax credit [see section 16(1) of the Tax Credits Act 2002]..

15.     I am invited to set aside the tribunal’s decision and to give the decision that the tribunal ought to have given in these circumstances. This is namely that, as at the date of the decision under appeal, there were no grounds for holding that the Appellant did not satisfy the entitlement conditions for child tax credit on the basis that her daughter, A, was not a qualifying young person within the meaning of regulation 5(2) of the Child Tax Credit Regulations 2002.

16.     I accept that invitation in the particular circumstances of this case and make the decision as set out above.

Gwynneth Knowles QC

Judge of the Upper Tribunal

24 March 2015.

[signed on the original as dated]