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TP rule 24- time to send Representatives submission on behalf of Appellant
Dear Advisers,
Do you usually send in your submissions within a month of the DWP/HMCTS/Local Council have sent thier opposition response to the tribunal?
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/488476/consolidated-sec-rules.pdf
THE TRIBUNAL PROCEDURE (FIRST-TIER TRIBUNAL) (SOCIAL ENTITLEMENT CHAMBER) RULES 2008 S.I. 2008 No. 2685 (L. 13) as in force on 21st August 2015
Rule 24: Responses and replies
(6) The appellant and any other respondent may make a written submission and supply further documents in reply to the decision maker’s response.
(7) Any submission or further documents under paragraph (6) must be provided to the Tribunal within 1 month after the date on which the decision maker sent the response to the party providing the reply, and the Tribunal must send a copy to each other party.
I ask because I sent my submission the day before and it was not read. My client lost her appeal and I want to ask for the decision to be set aside. But this was 4 months after the DWP’s opposition was sent out. In fact I usually send it after the hearing has been listed because that’s when my clients find the energy to locate the evidence and feed back to me about the draft submission, or in some cases that’s when they seek help. Not always, sometimes it’s in a month. I’ve never had an issue with it being accepted, I suspect the new system and the old system affected my submission reaching the right place as the case had both the new digit only reference and the legacy SC reference from HMCTS.
[ Edited: 27 Aug 2020 at 12:16 pm by Eastbourne ]I don’t know about current arrangements but I always made sure to send submissions at least 14 days prior to the hearing where possible and I can’t say I’m entirely surprised that a sub sent the day before wasn’t read by the panel.
I don’t know about current arrangements but I always made sure to send submissions at least 14 days prior to the hearing where possible and I can’t say I’m entirely surprised that a sub sent the day before wasn’t read by the panel.
Thank you for your comment Paul_Treloar_AgeUK. That’s good practice. Where you aware of TP rule 24?
Thank you for your comment Paul_Treloar_AgeUK. That’s good practice. Where you aware of TP rule 24?
I’ve not done appeals for a good few years now so I wasn’t aware of the specific direction you’ve quoted. I doubt whether that’s why your submission wasn’t seen by the panel, I’d expect its just that they either didn’t get it at all or they didn’t get it in time to read it prior to the hearing.
I don’t know about current arrangements but I always made sure to send submissions at least 14 days prior to the hearing where possible and I can’t say I’m entirely surprised that a sub sent the day before wasn’t read by the panel.
Thank you for your comment Paul_Treloar_AgeUK. That’s good practice. Where you aware of TP rule 24?
I have never known a tribunal refuse to consider a submission from an appellant / rep. under Rule 24 (6)&(7) or its predecessor provisions (although I have been ‘torn off a strip’ on occasion for a ‘late’ submission including handing one in at the hearing). At the very least if the tribuanl did receive it but refuse to consider it they should record their reasons for that refusal. You may want to advise your client to request a Statement of Reasons and the Record of Proceedings.
You do not say to where or by what method you submitted the submission (I am assuming you sent it by email to the HMCTS admin. support centre (ASC) rather than directly to the clerk at the venue?).
It seems far more likely that the tribunal did not receive the submission (even if you sent it to the clerk at the venue by email they may not have received it - which can depend on the IT facilities at the specific venue). I would suggest if you sent it to the ASC the day before the hearing there is no chance it would have been processed and forwarded to the venue in time for a hearing the next day.
Paul has suggested it is good practice to send a submission at least 14 days before the hearing. Given the current state of admin chaos at HMCTS (aside from Covid 19) I would suggest 28 days (at least) is current good practice. Even submissions sent months in advance sometimes don’t get issued to the tribunal / parties!
If the submission was not received by the tribunal itself you could consider an application for a set aside under Rule 37. You could do this at the same time as a request for a SOR & ROP. It may be worth phoning HMCTS to see if / when they received the submission and if/when they issued it to the tribunal before making the application so as to ‘reinforce’ your application (it is not unknown for a copy of a submission etc to be issued to the tribunal / parties weeks after the hearing has taken place!).
The rule 24 discussion is a fairly barren one I think. Yes the rule is there, but it is often not followed and the FtT does not really enforce it. The same is true of the opposite part of the rule requiring the DWP response to be submitted within a month which virtually never happens. An FtT which excluded a submission in a typical WCA/PIP style appeal on the basis that it was submitted outside of the month would have some difficulty in justifying that approach.
Nonetheless you want your submission to be received by HMCTS in sufficient time that (a) you can be sure that it is received and added to the bundle before the hearing (b) it is included in the papers sent to the Tribunal members in advance and (c) it does not necessitate an avoidable adjournment. Unless your submission is basically just a speaking note or a “wishlist” of points you want then sending it the day before the hearing fails on all of those counts.
The standard form letter to appellants just says to submit evidence 14 (or maybe 7? I don’t have it in front of me) days before the hearing which is good advice.
None of this really matters to your case though. You can request a set aside on the basis that the material was not available to the panel. The Judge may have regard to how late in the day it was submitted in deciding whether it is in the interests of justice to set the decision aside.
I would agree with what has been said above. Sending a sub in the day before means it was most likely never seen by the Tribunal. I did once hand a submission in on the morning of a hearing on the afternoon but that was pre-Covid when I could walk it over to the hearing venue so knew it would be given to the panel (the judge started to give me a dressing down but I explained I’d picked the case up less than week ago and they then changed their tune!). But otherwise I would say seven days beforehand is the absolute latest preferably ten days I would say. Requesting a set aside (alongside a Statement of Reasons/Record of Proceedings) is your best bet and I’d not worry about any arguments under Rule 24.
Personally I’ve not yet been picked up on Rule 24 apart from at the moment by one judge (someone who should be well known to members in the area previously administered by Newcastle) who extended the time limit set by Rule 24 and asked me to comply accordingly.
Thank you everyone.
I have the full reasons, there’s one sentence in the beginning of it, that there is some discussion about whether all the papers were before the tribunal (and that this is not addressed in the reasons).
I was anxious that my protest that the submission was not read would be rejected at the off because of rule 24, but I’m happy that it’s been usual practice from what you’re saying that rule 24 isn’t kept to by most of us (actually impossible for me with a large majority of my clients). I have other reasons that the hearing was unfair- the doctor interrupted my client etc, but they all really boil down to the tribunal not having everything in front of them which lead to a decision that my client was not believed (she is very stoic and managing to work despite significant limitations); not believed because they didn’t see the whole picture without the submissions.
I don’t know if it’s the same where you each are, btw, but we’ve been told since the tribunal restructure that our office (which was Birmingham) has moved to Bradford, and sending the submission to the ASC address (Birmingham) has caused an added delay (on top of covid19 short staff delays) before it is forwarded to SSCS (Bradford). Might be worth you finding out if your main office has changed, before you have my issue!!
Thankyou Peter Turville- good advice about asking when the submissions arrived, that will help :)
[ Edited: 27 Aug 2020 at 12:18 pm by Eastbourne ]Thank you everyone.
I don’t know if it’s the same where you each are, btw, but we’ve been told since the tribunal restructure that our office (which was Birmingham) has moved to Bradford, and sending the submission to the ASC address (Birmingham) has caused an added delay (on top of covid19 short staff delays) before it is forwarded to SSCS (Bradford). Might be worth you finding out if your main office has changed, before you have my issue!!
Our ASC is/was also Birmingham which had been having significant admin. problem for many months (before C19) due to the transfer of work to Bradford etc (on the admission of the Regional Judge!). If you dont’t have already it is worth asking the local tribunal venue clerks if you can have direct contact details for them (email / phone) so you can send ‘late’ paperwork direct to them / check that the tribunal have received a copy all ready sent to the ASC (NB the case file normally only arrives at the venue a max of 1 week before a hearing). Its not unusual for a copy to be sent out to the appellant / rep but not to have been received by the tribunal itself! Most venue clerks / tribunals appreciate reps. checking that all paperwork is before the tribunal because it saves them time, adjourning cases etc. But their co-operation may depend on local circumstances (e.g. for many tribunal clerks this duty is only one of their duties within within the court - or if it is a ‘part-time’ venue contact may be difficult).
Rule 24 is rarely engaged as 6 is a choice i.e. “may make” and 7 only kicks in if you make that choice but not in a timely manner. I pick and choose my cases for subs. Not all cases need it.
A sub close to the hearing is rarely a good idea, albeit sometimes unavoidable. A sub that close in a pandemic via a contact centre where both the staff and the tribunal are often largely working from home was likely always a non-starter. However, the get out clause is easy enough to activate so fingers crossed.
Well I just finished my call with the adviser at HMCTS and have been told it took over a month for the submissions (sent 22/06/2020, 23/06/2020 and 24/06/2020 for hearing 25/06/2020) to be sent from Birmingham to Bradford, they arrived on the 27th of July 2020.
The email had *URGENT hearing 25/06/2020* in the heading.
I will definitely be checking form now on, asking if I can send it directly, thank you for the advice Peter Turville. I was sending a paper copy to the venue back when there was a venue!
Rule 2? When circumstances warrant.
Rule 2? When circumstances warrant.
Yes, and it often warrants. But I haven’t ever requested, because I hadn’t taken stock of the requirement to reply in one month till I double checked before writing out my request. And then I worried that it would fail for not keeping to the rules. But I think rule 2 is applied so frequently that perhaps it’s even slipped to the back of the minds of HMCTS- thankfully.
Personally I’ve not yet been picked up on Rule 24 apart from at the moment by one judge (someone who should be well known to members in the area previously administered by Newcastle) who extended the time limit set by Rule 24 and asked me to comply accordingly.
The only bother I ever had with a late submission was at Berwick…..
The judge said he was not going to accept the submission because it was late. I said in that case I intended to make a verbal submission, but as this would amount to me dictating the submission he might want to reconsider rejecting it to avoid a lot of note taking.
Yup, a tactic I’ve used a couple of times.