Leoni Fielding v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (UC): [2026] UKUT 349 (AAC)
Upper Tribunal Administrative Appeals Chamber decision by Judge Citron on 09 September 2026.
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Judicial Summary
The Respondent made an initial decision, in 2023, awarding universal credit to the Appellant; in 2024, the Respondent made a superseding decision, to include the carer element in the Appellant’s universal credit award. The case was about when the superseding decision took effect. The Appellant had started caring for her brother in March 2023, but only notified the Respondent of this in February 2024. The reason for not notifying the Respondent earlier was that it was only in January 2024 that a decision was made to award the Appellant’s brother personal independence payment (daily living component) (PIP), but with retrospective effect from March 2023. The PIP award for the Appellant’s brother was necessary for the Appellant to qualify for the carer element of universal credit. Applying the rules for the effective date of a superseding decision in respect of universal credit in the Universal Credit etc (Decisions and Appeals) Regulations 2013, the Upper Tribunal agrees with the First-tier Tribunal’s analysis that, because the superseding decision was to the Appellant’s advantage, it would ordinarily take effect from when it was notified i.e. February 2024. However, the Upper Tribunal holds that the First-tier Tribunal erred in finding that the power to extend time for notification (regulation 36) was not engaged in this case. The reason for the First-tier Tribunal’s error was that it mis-identified what had to be notified: it was not that the Appellant had begun to care for her brother, but that all the requirements for the carer element of universal credit – including that PIP was payable to her brother – had become satisfied. Seen in this light, the Appellant could not have made the relevant notification prior to the decision about the brother’s PIP, in January 2024, and the First-tier Tribunal’s analysis of regulation 36 was flawed in law because it overlooked this. The Upper Tribunal sets the First-tier Tribunal’s decision aside, and re-makes the decision, deciding that the regulation 36 power was engaged, such that time was to be extended for notification of the relevant change in circumstances, and so the superseding decision took effect in 2023, when PIP became payable to the Appellant’s brother i.e. when the relevant change of circumstances occurred.