child dla appeal, but renewal claim pending

my client was give mid care and low mob or her son on appeal, previous award was high of both, cl went to the UT and case was sent back to a new 1st tier, error of law was insufficient reasons, new 1st tier has warned my cl they might take away all the DLA award and have sent her to get advice . In the mean rime client has sent in a renewal claim form which was due under the normal rules . My question is what happens if the new Tribunal make an award but the later renewal decision is different or what happens if the renewal award come through before the new Tribunal ???
Thanks in advance

The Tribunal is concerned with facts at the time of the decision under appeal, which I imagine will be some time ago now if it’s already been through FtT and UT once.  The purpose of a review is to check for changes of circumstance since that decision.

In principle, therefore, the review and the appeal will be looking at separate facts on different dates and neither should be influenced by the other.

However, if the appeal relies on evidence of long term unchanged conditions DWP could take the view that the Tribunal’s findings about the situation two or three years ago are relevant to the claimant’s circumstances now.  In that case:

- if the Tribunal decision comes first, the review decision could legitimately be influenced by it
- if the review decision comes first, it could be revised in the light of the Tribunal’s subsequent decision: see Reg 3(5A) of the 1999 D&A Regs

Reg 3(5A) is supposed to be advantageous to claimants: there is no point in DWP defending adverse decisions and forcing the claimant to go through a second appeal when they can see which way the wind is blowing.  Much more efficient to recognise that Tribunal 2 will very likely go the same way as Tribunal 1 so why waste everyone’s time with Tribunal 2 and why not just revise the latest decision?

But there is nothing in the drafting that confines it to being used that way.  Reg 3(5A) allows DWP to say “Aha, here’s that appeal decision we’ve been waiting for ... Oh, interesting!  that sheds a new light on things - maybe we should not be paying as much as we are under the latest decision”.

Thank you HB, very useful. I am seriously considering advising my client to withdraw her appeal, she has the middle care and low mob DLA an dis trying to get higher rates , the Tribunal has specified 3 items of evidence which suggest she should not be getting the middle rate care,  trouble is the client previously got high rate of each when the child was younger and doe snot see why she should not keep the high rates for ever, she has bombarded the Tribunal with hundreds of items of medical evidence about the Childs condition but little of it sheds light on the care needs