I'm looking for caselaw addressing the situation where a tribunal addresses all the issues except calculation, remitting that to the secretary of state / local authority. I have read a bit in a HB circular (A15/2007) which says in such cases an appelant should be at 'liberty to apply' to the tribunal in the case of dispute and there would not be normal appeal rights, and I've looked at R(IS) 2/08 which says non outcome decisions are okay but doesn't spell out what should happen if there is a calculation dispute. What I could really do with is some caselaw that spells out that a tribunal can deal with the dispute so I can get it back in front of a Judge and sorted out. Anyone know of useful caselaw?

The appropriate procedure in such a case is for the judge to make a decision on the legal principles to be applied, remitting the detailed calculation to the decision maker with liberty to either party to apply to the tribunal if they are unable to reach agreement on the detailed calculation. Such a term must be expressly contained in the decision notice, and then the parties (whichever is the one disagreeing, ie usually the claimant) can write to the tribunal office asking for a further disposal hearing. It will if at all practicable come back before the same judge.

If there is no such provision then the decision is final, and the new calculation if disputed carries a new right of appeal.

Note that where there has been an express order for liberty to apply, it should not be used as in a case I once came across, where an appointee was trying to get the council to accept that his mother's overpayment should be calculated as he thought the rules required (it involved a diminishing capital calculation). The judge had to point out to him that the council's own calcualtion resulted in a very much smaller overpayment than his own!