I understand that there are regulations which state what the rights of representatives are. Does anybody know what they are, esp in relation to Tax Credit appeals?

Reg 49 (8) of the SSCS (D&A) regs 1999 states; "(8) A person who has the right to be heard at a hearing may be accompanied and may be represented by another person whether having professional qualifications or not and, for the purposes of the proceedings at the hearing, any such representative shall have all the rights and powers to which the person whom he represents is entitled"...

Other than that there are no regs that I am aware of as to the duties of a representative... you might however find the following Commissioners decisions relevant?

CDLA/1839/2000 - Para 7 - "It raised the question: are there circumstances when the conduct of a representative is such as to make a tribunal decision unsafe, in the sense that the tribunal decision may itself be regarded as unfair because of the conduct of the representative?".

CJSA/5100/2001 - Para 15 - "Put briefly, what happened was this. The claimant made an assertion. He was not in a position to do more than make it. The power to obtain the evidence to test the assertion was outside his control. It lay with the Secretary of State and the appeal tribunal".

CJSA/5101/2001 - Para 9 - "The claimant has no right to legal representation under British law in a social security case, and the European Convention on Human Rights does not give him that right"

CDLA/3965/2001 - Paras 11 & 12 - "Therefore, the chairman on 3 July 2001 did not give proper judicial consideration to the basis on which he made the determination to exclude Mr B from representing the claimant - There having been no legal basis for the exclusion of Mr B on 3 July 2001, the claimant was deprived of the representation he was entitled to have under regulation 49(8) of the Decisions and Appeals Regulations".

& of course - CIB/908/2003 - para 8 - "I am sorry if the claimant’s representative takes exception to the way I have expressed this decision. I understand that representatives have to do the best for their clients. But there are limits"...

Most of these decisions are available to download from the Commissioner's web site at:

http://www.osscsc.gov.uk/AdvancedSearchInput.do;jsessionid=aaabjUoQ9YGxjY

i'm glad someone knows this stuff.

can anyone tell me if the inland revenue heard of the Human Rights Act?

oh yep it must have, cos their legistlation has to comply with it, . When i say 'their' legislation, i mean ...actually, that's an interesting question...

i can't wait to read the Ombudsman's special report on what's 'inherently' wrong in the system. the laughs just keep on comeing in this job.





jj

Tue 14-Dec-04 03:23 PM by ken

Commissioner Jacobs has a recent decision that deals with what a rep does and emphasizes that a tribunal must allow a rep space to fulfil their function -
CIB 2058 2004

By the way,I've since found out that reg 18(9)of the Tax Credits (Appeals) Regs contain the TC equivalent of Reg 49(8) quoted above. Typical, you spend hours looking for something then stumble across it completely by accident.

A summary of Commissioner Jacobs' recent decision in CIB/2058/2004, together with a link to the full decision itself, is now available in the briefcase area of rightsnet.

In this decision, Commissioner Jacobs considers the functions of a representative, the duty of a tribunal to allow the representative to fulfil those functions and says that tribunals should give more consideration to adjourning a case to allow a representative to attend.

There is an interesting article on this topic written by Comnr. Jacobs at http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/pdfs/SSLPA_Jacobs_July_2004.pdf