Refusal to forward my Housing Benefit appeal onto Tribunal Service

My Local Authority have failed to forward my Housing Benefit appeal onto the tribunal service after I sent my Local Authority 3 hand written requests to appeal to a independent tribunal, what can I do can I appeal direct

Yes, the CPAG handbook assures us that under the new tribunal rules (regs 5 and 24, as made), if a decision-maker does not forward an appeal in a reasonable* timescale, an appellant can send an appeal directly to the tribunal service. However, it may be relevant to know what reasons the LA have given, if any, for not doing so.

Have they actually considered it and issued a decision? Are they just sitting on it? Are you 100% confident the appeal fulfilled all the requirements of being a valid appeal, and could not be taken as a recon request? Depending on what has already happened, you might want to also ask the tribunal to issue directions to the LA, eg to provide a response within a certain time.

* In some circs, you may also want to consider complaining. The LGO has previously decided that 28 days was “reasonable” to deal with an appeal - brief summary of 01/C/13400 at page 14 of this pdf.

Have a look at R(H)1/07 at paragraphs 21 to 34:

http://www.osscsc.gov.uk/Aspx/view.aspx?id=2025

In my experience if you send a copy of the decision, copy of letter of appeal and copy of any supporting documents together with a covering letter in which you highlight the chronology of events since decision (eg on X date I telephoned the LA and spoke with Y who informed me that the LA would not submit the appeal…), together with a copy of R(H)1/07 to the Tribunal with a big heading: “APPLICATION FOR A DIRECTION- LA REFUSE TO SUBMIT APPEAL TO TRIBUNAL”
Then under that the first thing you say is “please pass this to a judge”...

What will probably happen is the Clerk will be confused as they cannot find any record of the appeal on their system. You will need to ring them and explain that is right and that is the problem. They may say that they cannot deal with it until the LA submit the documents. At this point you say that is not correct and they need to pass all the papers to a judge for directions to be given etc.

Good luck.

Martin

edited to mend link

You’ll probably find clerks in the Liverpool Tribunals area know what to do with it because unfortunately it is a recurring issue with the DWP as well as LAs in this area. Its a pain but at least their familiarity means they know the drill!