KS v The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions: [2025] UKUT 015 (AAC)
Upper Tribunal Administrative Appeals Chamber decision by Judge Church on 14 January 2025
Read the full decision in .
Judicial Summary
In this appeal the Upper Tribunal considers the Universal Credit Regulations 2013 (“UC Regulations”) and the Social Security (Medical Evidence) Regulations 1976 (“Medical Evidence Regulations”) and decides that: a. regulation 28(2)(b) of the UC Regulations does not preclude a self-certification from starting the 3-month waiting period before a claimant may be entitled to the LCWRA element of Universal Credit, b. it was “unreasonable” (for the purposes of regulation 2(1A) of the Medical Evidence Regulations) for the Secretary of State to require the Claimant to provide a medical certificate in accordance with Part I of Schedule 1 to the Medical Evidence Regulations in circumstances where she had made a note in her UC journal asking whether she needed to provide a medical certificate given that she was unavailable for work because of her responsibilities as a carer to her disabled daughter and that query had gone unanswered, c. the Claimant’s report that she was suffering from health problems that affected her ability to work and was in receipt of PIP, together with the Fit Note she provided on 24 February 2022 (speaking to the period from 14 April 2021) amounted to “such other evidence as may be sufficient to show that [the Claimant was] incapable of work or [had] limited capability for work so that [she] should refrain… from work by reason of some specific disease or bodily disablement or mental disability” for the purposes of regulation 2(1A) of the Medical Evidence Regulations. The ‘backdated’ Fit Note served to ‘bridge the gap’ between the Claimant’s initial self-certification and the date on which the Fit Note was provided. The FtT Decision is re-made, allowing the appeal, setting aside the Secretary of State’s decision, and deciding that the “relevant period” for the purposes of regulation 28 of the UC Regulations commenced on 17 April 2021 (and not 24 February 2022, as previously decided).