The High Court has refused an application for judicial review by an anonymised mother who challenged the handling of her appeal over Domiciliary Care Allowance (DCA) for her son, identified in the judgment as J.
The appeal had been dismissed on the papers in February 2014. After judicial review proceedings began, the Chief Appeals Officer offered a hearing before a different appeals officer to consider whether new evidence or facts might justify revising the decision. The applicant argued that the appeal decision was final and could not be reopened for a hearing without first being quashed by the court.
Mr Justice Michael Peart held that section 313 of the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act 2005 allowed an appeals officer to hear evidence as part of a revision under section 317. He found that the revision process could include an oral hearing to consider new facts or evidence and whether the earlier appeal decision should be changed. The offer did not create a second appeal: the original appeal remained the one under consideration, through the statutory revision process.
The court also noted that an oral hearing is not an automatic entitlement at the appeal stage. An appeals officer has discretion to decide whether a hearing is necessary, and that discretion must be exercised fairly and lawfully. The judgment did not decide whether this applicant had been entitled to an oral hearing before the original appeal was determined, because the court considered that issue did not arise once it accepted the officers’ power to offer a hearing through the revision process.
The underlying DCA application had been refused in June 2013. The applicant had submitted hospital letters and a detailed account of her son’s daily needs. The appeals officer said she had not considered the medical assessor’s opinions when deciding the appeal. The High Court stressed that the judicial review was not a merits appeal and that it had no role in deciding whether J qualified for the allowance.
The court refused the relief sought. The judgment did not determine whether the original refusal of DCA was correct or whether a revision would result in a different decision.