Letter from one of the local authorities in the area to say that they have considered our appeal and changed the decision in our favour.

The decision is re an overpayment of HB and the change is that they will recover half the overpayment from her and half from someone else, but and I quote "if once we have exhausted all our recovery options and if the debt has not been repaid we may come back to you and make you responsible for the full amount of the overpayment."

After I'd finished being overwhelmed by the generosity of this concession, it occured to me that it did not seem to be much of a change to their original decision.

I've checked the DA regs 17(1) and 17(2) - but they say a more advantageous decision only "includes" the types of change listed so there could be others. Is there any useful caselaw? I want to argue that the decision to recover from either person wouldn't be appealable (since they both failed to disclose a material fact) so such a change in their approach to recovery isn't a revision. But while that just feels like common sense to me and I can't find anything to back it up.

Sue

I'd argue, quite strongly, that the LA has not changed any appealable part of the decision. Recovery is an entirely separate issue to deciding recoverability.

The former has no appeal rights; the latter most certainly does. Based on the info given, it seems the LA still considers the o/p to be recoverable. Therefore, there "revision" is nothing of the sort, or, if it is, it is in any case not more favourable to your client.

Letter off the LA I think - may be worth mentioning that if the LA fails to forward the case to TTS, you will approach TTS independently (there is a CD to support such an approach).

Hope this helps.