[Home] [Databases] [World Law] [Multidatabase Search] [Help] [Feedback]
	UK Social Security and Child Support Commissioners' Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> UK Social Security and Child Support Commissioners' Decisions >> [2003] UKSSCSC CP_2872_2003 (17 December 2003) URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSSCSC/2003/CP_2872_2003.html Cite as: [2003] UKSSCSC CP_2872_2003

[New search] [Printable RTF version] [Help]

[2003] UKSSCSC CP_2872_2003 (17 December 2003)

 


DECISION OF THE SOCIAL SECURITY COMMISSIONER

1. The claimant's appeal to the Commissioner is disallowed. The decision of the Blackburn appeal tribunal dated 29 May 2003 is not erroneous in point of law, for the reasons given below, and therefore stands. A representative of the Secretary of State should note the request made in paragraph 25 below.

The background

2. The appeal tribunal was concerned with the claimant's appeal against the decision made on 7 January 2002 that he was entitled to a retirement pension of £79.83 per week from and including 7 January 2002, his 65th birthday. That amount was made up of a category A retirement pension of £73.22 (basic pension of £72.50, plus additional pension of 72p) and graduated retirement benefit (GRB) of £6.61.
3. The claimant did not challenge the amount of GRB or the amount of the basic pension. His challenge was focused on the amount of the additional pension payable. Even then, he did not challenge the conclusion that that additional pension had been correctly worked out in accordance with the terms of the relevant legislation, his history of contributions and his entitlement from a contracted-out occupational pension scheme. His argument was based on the pension forecasts that he had received from the Benefits Agency (RPFA Unit) dated 1 February 1995 and 4 February 1997. These stated that he was "already entitled to" an additional pension of £5.09 and £5.23 respectively. From now on I shall refer for details to the 1997 forecast, a full copy of which is in the papers. Among the other statements on the forecast was a reply to a specific query the claimant had raised, that if he stopped working on 31 March 1997 that would not affect the amount of state retirement pension he could expect to get when he reached state pension age. The claimant did in fact leave employment and his active membership of his occupational scheme on 31 March 1997 and did not subsequently work as an employee, although he had a short period of self-employment. He argued that, as had been told in a formal document in February 1997 that he was already entitled to an additional pension of £5.23 with an assurance that stopping work would have no effect on the amount of his state pension, he should be paid that amount of additional pension from 7 January 2002. That was the basis on which he had made his decision to stop working and thereby to cease accruing state or occupational pension entitlements.
4. By the time of the hearing on 29 May 2003 the claimant had received a formal decision on behalf of the Board of Inland Revenue as to the amount as at 7 January 2002 of his guaranteed minimum pension (GMP) derived from his occupational pension scheme. That amount was £92.90 per week. I shall come back to that calculation later, but for the moment all I need to note is that when the Secretary of State (or an appeal tribunal or a Commissioner) is working out the amount of additional pension payable, the amount of GMP formally determined by the Inland Revenue has to be accepted (see Commissioner's decision CP/4479/2000). The Secretary of State had already set out in the written submission to the appeal tribunal, confirming earlier correspondence with the claimant, his calculations of the gross amount of the claimant's additional pension. That was based on his earnings over the qualifying earnings level (what used to be called the lower earnings limit) for all the tax years from 1978/1979 to 1996/1997) and applying the revaluation percentages set out in the applicable Order. That produced a figure of £93.62. Again, the claimant does not challenge the figures used, the arithmetic or the application of the legislation. It is also a matter of agreement that, in substance, where the gross amount of a person's additional pension exceeds the amount of his GMP, only the excess is payable as part of a category A retirement pension.

The appeal tribunal's decision

5. The appeal tribunal disallowed the appeal. It confirmed the calculation of the claimant's entitlement as in my previous paragraph. It rejected his arguments about the pension forecasts, saying in essence that the forecast was no more than an advance estimate of what was expected, not a guarantee or a binding promise or a formal decision. The statement of reasons endorsed a statement in a letter dated 19 July 2002 from the Pension Service that the reason for the reduction in the amount of the additional pension payable was specifically because the claimant's actual earnings (due to his early retirement) were less than those used in the projection contained in the pension forecast. The suggestion there was that the forecast was accurate when made and that events after its date caused the amount payable in January 2002 to be less.

The appeal to the Commissioner

6. The claimant now appeals against that decision with the leave of the regional chairman. In the written submission dated 4 September 2003 the representative of the Secretary of State did not support the appeal. I had directed that the submission should deal with the question of whether a decision-maker acting on behalf of the Secretary of State in deciding a claim could be bound in law by any representations (eg statements about entitlement) previously made on behalf of the Secretary of State. The submission was that the answer is no, and there was reference to decisions of the Commissioners and the courts in support. It was also said that the proper method of calculation had been used to produce the result that additional pension of 72p was payable. In reply, the claimant maintained his position that the forecast contained a plain statement of what he was already entitled to, which was more than a mere estimate, and that if regulations or methods of calculation had been changed after February 1997 he should have been informed.
7. I granted the claimant's request for an oral hearing of his appeal, which took place at Bury County Court on 4 December 2003. He attended, accompanied by his wife. The Secretary of State was represented by Miss Deborah Haywood of the Office of the Solicitor to the Department for Work and Pensions. I am grateful for the submissions made, which included a helpful written submission from the claimant. Although I have not been able to decide the appeal in his favour, there has been an opportunity to examine the nature of the 1995 and 1997 pensions forecasts and their relationship to the decision made in 2002 in much greater detail than had been done before.
8. On the basis of the Inland Revenue's decision as to GMP entitlement, the proper application of the relevant legislation as at 7 January 2002 to the calculation of the amount of additional pension payable does produce the result that only 72p is payable as at that date. Therefore, there could only be some different decision on the claim for retirement pension if the contents of the pension forecasts could affect the application of that legislation.
9. For that purpose, I work on the assumption that the 1997 forecast gave a statement of currently earned entitlement, not dependent on continuing to work, that a reasonable person would rely on such a statement and that the claimant did rely on the statement to his detriment to some extent. However, the principles set out in the Commissioners' decisions relied on by the Secretary of State, R(P) 1/80 and R(SB) 8/83, are against the operation of the doctrine of estoppel. That doctrine is, very roughly, a principle that a person (A) cannot rely on a legal right when A has given some promise or assurance to another person (B) in circumstances in which it was reasonable for B to rely on the promise and it is unfair to allow A to rely on the legal right, particularly where B has acted to his detriment in reliance on the promise or assurance. In paragraph 14 of R(P) 1/80, the then Chief Commissioner pointed out that by statute insurance officers were required to decide benefit claims and questions and held that the doctrine of estoppel could not operate to prevent them carrying out that statutory duty. That holding was followed in R(SB) 8/83. Then in Davies v Social Security Commissioner, R(SB) 4/91, Woolf LJ, in refusing leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal, regarded it as well established that an estoppel could not operate to prevent a Department of the Crown carrying out statutory obligations or give a person a claim against the Department for benefit to which he would not otherwise be entitled. The Secretary of State could have mentioned other cases to the same effect, such as R(SB) 14/88 (a decision of a Tribunal of Commissioners), where it was pointed out that officers making decisions on claims had no discretion whether or not to apply rules laid down in legislation.
10. In my judgment, the rule that estoppel cannot prevent an officer making a decision which is required by the terms of the relevant legislation is firmly established and must be followed. In R(SB) 8/83 and R(SB) 14/88 it was mentioned that, under the adjudication system then in force, assurances or promises about benefit matters would commonly be made by officers acting on behalf of the Secretary of State, while decisions on claims were made by adjudication officers (or their predecessors), not in that capacity acting on behalf of the Secretary of State. That was an additional reason for the doctrine of estoppel not applying. Now, decisions on claims are made on behalf of the Secretary of State, so that in the present case there could be said to be one person in the position of A who gave an assurance and who then relied on a legal right in making an inconsistent decision on the claim. However, the fundamental reason for not applying the doctrine of estoppel remains equally as powerful under the current system of adjudication as it did under the previous system.

The Commissioner's decision

11. Therefore, the Secretary of State could not have given any different decision from that made on the claimant's entitlement to retirement pension from and including 7 January 2002. In turn, the appeal tribunal could not have made any other decision than to confirm the Secretary of State's decision. Its decision is therefore not erroneous in point of law and the claimant's appeal must be dismissed.

The 1997 pension forecast

12. It is, though, right and proper to examine the February 1997 pensions forecast and the possible explanations for the difference between the forecast and the actuality in January 2002.
13. First, I can go through the letter dated 4 February 1997 giving the claimant his pension forecast, drawing out what seem to me to be the implications at particular points. The letter started by saying that the claimant had 44 qualifying years of contributions by 5 April 1996 so as to qualify for the full amount of the basic pension. Then it gave a figure for total weekly pension earned to 5 April 1996 of, at then current rates, £72.18, made up of £61.15 basic pension, £5.23 payable additional pension and £5.80 GRB. That was followed by a figure (£73.29) for what the claimant would be likely to receive at age 65, if the information given on his BR19 application form did not change. The only change in the constituent elements was in the payable additional pension, which went up to £6.34.
14. Calculations on the second page showed the amount of payable additional pension as the result of deducting the contracted-out deduction (ie the GMP) from the total or gross additional pension earned. For the 5 April 1996 figure, £65.91 GMP was deducted from £71.14. For the second figure, £68.86 GMP was deducted from £75.20. There was a very instructive explanation just above those calculations of why the second figure was based only on total additional pension earned to 5 April 1997. This was that, because of changes in the legislation with effect from 6 April 1997, no-one who was a member of a contracted-out occupational scheme after that date would accrue any additional pension entitlement from their social security contributions. Because the claimant was a member of such a scheme in February 1997, the forecast did not include any additional pension expected to be earned after 5 April 1997 (that must be what was meant by the later sentence "If you remain contracted out of SERPS from now until you reach State Pension Age, you will not earn any more AP"). As it turned out, the reason why the claimant did not earn any additional pension after 5 April 1997 was that he did not pay any contributions as an employed earner (and his contributions in his brief period of self-employment could not have been sufficient to earn anything), but that does not affect the principle of the calculation of what was to be expected at age 65. The calculation of additional pension at age 65 explained that it was based on assuming an increase of 1995/96 earnings in 1996/97 in line with price rises.
15. It is plain from the above that the forecast of payable additional pension earned to 5 April 1996 was based entirely on actual earnings factors derived from contributions down to that date, and the consequent amounts of additional pension and GMP. That amount could not, by the nature of how it was calculated, be altered downwards by whether or not the claimant worked or paid contributions after 5 April 1996. The calculation must have been made using the full 23 years from 6 April 1978 to the end of the last full tax year before the claimant's 65th birthday (5 April 2001) and with no additional pension or GMP accruing in years after 5 April 1996. That is shown by the way that the forecast of payable additional pension at age 65 took account of the claimant's estimated earnings in the tax year 1996/1997 (the exact amount not being known in February 1997). As has been seen, the taking into account of that extra year of work and contributions produced the higher forecast of £6.34. There remained a possibility that, if the claimant paid contributions after 5 April 1997 while not being in a contracted-out scheme, extra additional pension could be earned. And that would be payable additional pension, as there was no provision for the deduction of GMPs from additional pension earned after 5 April 1997. But a failure to accrue extra additional pension after 5 April 1997 could not affect what had been accrued to that date.
16. It follows that the explanation of the difference between the forecast and the actuality given in the letter of 19 July 2002 from the Pension Service and adopted by the appeal tribunal in its statement of reasons cannot hold water at all. That letter stated:

"The Pension Forecast computer system was programmed to project Additional Pension using the highest earnings factor recorded on your National Insurance account during the last five years prior to the forecast being issued.

Therefore when your forecast dated 4 February 1997 was issued. The projected amount of Additional Pension was calculated using the earnings factor for the 1995/96 tax year, which was £3016. Your actual earnings were less than those used in the projection, which has resulted in a reduction in the amount of Additional Pension payable."

The method described in the first of those paragraphs is inconsistent with the method which was said in the pension forecast of 4 February 1997 to have actually been used. And the amount stated for the claimant's 1995/96 earnings factor is in fact the qualifying earnings factor for that year. The claimant's gross earnings factor for 1995/96 was £20,649 and for 1996/97 was £21,636. Whether the actual earnings factor for 1996/97 was less (or even more) than what was projected when giving the forecast of 4 February 1997 is unclear.

17. Apart from those factual errors or uncertainties, the suggestion about the cause of the difference between forecast and actuality ignored the basic structure of the calculation of payable additional pension. That is the result of deducting GMP from total additional pension. Both elements are derived from the same earnings factors. If the claimant's 1996/1997 earnings factor was lower (or higher) than had been estimated for the purposes of the age 65 forecast of 4 February 1997, that would cause the figures for both the GMP and the additional pension to be lower (or higher). It is hard to see how the estimate of earnings for 1996/97 being off target by a small amount could have had much effect on the estimate of payable additional pension at age 65. And as I interpret the methods used in giving the pension forecast, the inaccuracy could have had no downward effect at all on the estimate of the payable additional pension already earned by 5 April 1996.

Was the 1997 pension forecast correct when it was made?

18. That raises the question of whether the pension forecast of 4 February 1997 was correct when it was made. There are indications which apparently point to it not having been. They come from examination of the detailed statements of how both the claimant's total additional pension and his GMP were calculated. The additional pension calculation is in the letter of 12 September 2002 from the Pension Service (pages 11 and 12), repeated in the Secretary of State's written submission to the appeal tribunal (pages 1J and 1K). The GMP calculation is attached to the undated letter from the Inland Revenue sent in by the claimant with his letter dated 1 May 2003 (pages 23 and 24).
19. I shall have to come back to the different methods of revaluation of earnings factors, but both calculations are based on the same earnings factors for tax years from 1978/79 to 1996/97. There are very minor discrepancies in the figures for particular years, which may be the result of arithmetical or clerical mistakes or possibly the result earnings received very close to the transition from one tax year to another being assigned to different years for different purposes. But, whatever the reasons, the discrepancies are too small to have any overall significant effect. If the two calculations were made from the same earnings factors, as known by 4 February 1997, one might have expected that the figures for total additional pension and GMP should have been the same or at least very close together. That would have been so under the original form of the state earnings-related pension scheme (SERPS) in force down to 5 April 1988, because the same revaluation factors were applied while a person remained a member of a contracted-out scheme and the same percentages and period of years were used. That was the immediate reaction of the author of the Secretary of State's submission of 4 September 2003, from whom Miss Haywood was able to take some instructions over the telephone during an adjournment in the oral hearing. His reaction was that the forecast of 4 February 1997 must have been wrong because the GMP figure should not have been so much lower than the figure for total additional pension when both had been accrued over exactly the same period.
20. I am now, after further thought, not so sure. That is because of the changes made under the Social Security Act 1986 with effect from 6 April 1988 in the annual rate at which GMP accrued. The legislation is exceptionally complicated and I do not pretend to be at all sure about its effect. However, I think that the result is that, for people reaching state pension age before tax year 2009/10, the rate of accrual of GMP in tax years from 1988/89 to 1996/97 is lower than the rate of accrual of total additional pension. That would cause a gap to develop between the two amounts and give rise to a prospective entitlement to actual payment of additional pension, rather than its wiping out by the GMP. The practical expression of that is shown in the calculations made in the present case. The calculation of total additional pension attributable to tax years from 1988/89 to 1996/97 shown on page 12 involves a multiplication of the surplus earnings factors over those years by 24%. That is the same as dividing by about 4.17. The calculation of GMP attributable to the same years shown on pages 22 and 24 involves a division by 5 (see the explanation of "composite divisors" on page 22). Both those calculations are, so far as I can discover, entirely in accordance with the relevant legislation. In effect, the reduction in the rate of accrual imposed from April 1988 (from allowing a pension of 25% of annual surplus earnings factors to allowing a pension of 20%), which was gradually phased in for certain age groups in relation to additional pension, was immediately applied to everyone in relation to GMP. The inevitable result was that, for the age-groups affected, the amount of GMP would be less than the amount of total additional pension attributable to the same earnings factors. I note that if the above is right, it would also help to explain the increase of £1.11 in the forecast amount of payable additional pension between the amount earned by 5 April 1996 and the amount assumed to be earned by 5 April 1997. Nevertheless, there is still doubt about the accuracy of the forecast of 4 February 1997 at the time that it was made, which the claimant deserves to have investigated further (see paragraph 25 below).

The effect of revaluation of GMP by the claimant's scheme

21. If the February 1997 forecast was accurate when made, is there anything which can then explain the difference between the estimate and the claimant's actual entitlement at 7 January 2002? I have already discarded the explanation given in the Pension Service's letter of 19 July 2002. But there is a factor mentioned in the Inland Revenue's letter giving the formal GMP decision which appears relevant. The letter and the GMP calculation points up a significant difference in the way in which surplus earnings factors are revalued to take account of inflation as between additional pension and GMP. For additional pension purposes, as is shown in the calculations at pages 11 and 12 and explained at page 10, surplus earnings factors for each year are revalued by the appropriate percentage specified in the last Revaluation Order made before the beginning of the tax year in which the claimant reaches state pension age. That revaluation is to be in line with general increases in the level of earnings (Social Security Administration Act 1992, section 148). For GMP purposes, the same revaluation was applied while a person remained a member of a contracted-out occupational pension scheme. But the scheme had a choice of rules to adopt for revaluing earnings factors in the circumstances that a member left service subject to such a scheme before reaching pension age. It could adopt the same rule as for additional pension. Or it could take the GMP as calculated on earnings factors revalued down to the date of leaving service and undertake either to increase its amount each year by the "prescribed percentage" or to increase its amount in line with general earnings increases, subject to a maximum of 5% in each year (limited rate revaluation). Those were the rules where the termination of service was prior to 6 April 1997, as in the present case. According to the Inland Revenue's letter, the claimant's scheme had adopted the prescribed percentage rule (fixed rate revaluation), which did not involve having to pay anything back to the state scheme, as was necessary with limited rate revaluation. For terminations of service between 6 April 1993 and 6 April 1997, the annual percentage is 7%.
22. As the claimant noted at the oral hearing, 7% seems quite a high figure. The Inland Revenue's letter shows the GMP calculated as at the date of leaving service on 31 March 1997 to have been £70.86 and the effect of the revaluation at 7% per year to have been to bring the figure up to £92.90 as at 7 January 2002. By contrast, the total additional pension at 7 January 2002 was forecast on 4 February 1997 to be £75.20, while the amount actually calculated after the proper revaluation was £93.62. And the Inland Revenue's letter referred to a previous wrong calculation of GMP at £86.32. That calculation had been wrong because it used the method of revaluation according to the Order under section 148 coming into force in 2000/01, ie the same method as has to be applied for additional pension purposes. On that basis there would have been payable additional pension of £7.30 as at 7 January 2002. It therefore looks very much as though it is the difference in the revaluation rules which accounts for the dramatic reduction in the amount of additional pension left payable after deduction of the GMP.

The effect on overall income from the state and from the claimant's scheme

23. I think that that is as far as I can take matters in the way of making what can only be provisional guesses about what might have happened. In particular, I do not have any information about the terms of the claimant's occupational pension scheme, such as would enable me to make even any provisional guesses about whether the claimant has suffered any loss in overall income as the result of the increase in the value of his GMP since leaving service.
24. There is a real question about that, as a couple of illustrations show. If the claimant's occupational scheme did not in fact provide him with any benefits at age 65 in excess of the GMP, ie the minimum level which it had to guarantee in order to be contracted out, then his overall income from his occupational scheme and from his state retirement pension in combination would not have been affected by the increase in the value of the GMP. The additional pension entitlement within his category A retirement pension would still have topped up his overall income to the same level that it would have done if the amount of the GMP had been lower. If the claimant's occupational scheme did provide him with benefits at age 65 in excess of GMP, the calculations already described would seem to lead to a decrease in overall income. The increase in the value of the GMP would simply lead to a larger proportion of the claimant's occupational pension representing GMP without increasing the amount of the pension. At the same time the effective amount of additional pension in the category A retirement pension would be reduced. However, there are some exceptionally complicated provisions, known as the "anti-franking rules", which as I understand them are designed to avoid this effect. They are currently in sections 87 to 92 of the Pension Schemes Act 1993. If at the date of leaving service a person's deferred pension rights exceed the amount of accrued GMP, then effectively the person is entitled actually to receive the revaluation increases to that GMP as part of his pension from the scheme, in addition to whatever increases the scheme made to the rights in excess of GMP. If that was the claimant's situation in the present case, that again would lead to no overall loss of income having been suffered. He would have received the real benefit of the increase in the value of the GMP, with the additional pension available to top up that amount if necessary.

Possible further action

25. If all the discussion above is right, four points arise. First, the claimant has never received a coherent and convincing explanation from anyone within the Department for Work and Pensions of (i) how his February 1997 pensions forecast was calculated and the basis on which the calculation was made (eg in relation to his question about ceasing work at the end of March 1997); (ii) why the actual payable additional pension at age 65 was so much less than estimated in the forecast; and (iii) whether or not, by the combination of his occupational pension entitlement, underpinned by the GMP, and his state retirement pension entitlement, he in fact received the equivalent of the amounts included in the pension forecast, but not in the same form as stated there. The claimant is at the least entitled to such an explanation from someone in a position of authority within the Department. I therefore request that, within a month of the sending out of the present decision, the representative of the Secretary of State who wrote the submission of 4 September 2003 should write to the claimant to say whether or not he agrees with my provisional analysis in paragraphs 13 to 24 above and 26 to 29 below and with the consequences set out. It may be that further investigations need to be made and that other officers or the Inland Revenue may need to be involved, but I request that as a starting-point the representative should make as full a response as possible within a month. I put that in terms of a request as, having dismissed the claimant's appeal to the Commissioner, I have no power to give any binding directions at all. I would appreciate it if (unless the claimant objects) I could be sent a copy of whatever letters are sent to the claimant.
26. Second, it might be worthwhile for the claimant to check with the administrators of his occupational pension scheme that the scheme rules did in fact adopt the fixed rate method of revaluation of GMP at the date when he left service. It seems unlikely that the Inland Revenue would have got that wrong, but they would have relied on information from the scheme and there is always a possibility of mistakes. He could also check with the administrators what element of his pension is represented by GMP and whether he has benefited from the anti-franking rules. I think that the claimant should have got benefit statements from the scheme which show the amount of GMP, but underlying calculations may not have been fully set out or he may not at the time have appreciated the significance of the calculations.
27. Third, the Inland Revenue's calculation of GMP earned as at 31 March 1997 (£70.86) is somewhat higher than that estimated in the pension forecast of 4 February 1997 (£68.86). There might possibly be some argument that the estimate of GMP in the forecast was mistaken or flawed in some way, so as to give a misleading impression of the amount of payable additional pension which could be expected.
28. Fourth, and by far the most important, the pension forecast of 4 February 1997 gave no warning about the possible effect of the revaluation of the amount of a GMP after a person left pensionable service. The possibility of scheme rules adopting fixed rate revaluation had been part of the SERPS/additional pension scheme for many years, at least as far back as 1984 (see the Occupational Pension Schemes (Contacting-out) Regulations 1984, regulation 22). The prescribed percentage had altered, going down, over the years. In February 1997 amendments made to section 16(3) of the Pension Schemes Act 1993 by the Pensions Act 1995 and new regulations fixing the revaluation rates (the Occupational Pension Schemes (Contracting-out) Regulations 1996) were about to come into force on 6 April 1997, but the basic principle was not altered. It could of course be said that such matters of detail, depending partly on unknown levels of earnings inflation in future years, could not sensibly be included in the general explanations given on the standard form of pension forecast. But here the claimant had specifically asked about the effects on his pension of taking early retirement. The reply was as follows:

"You asked us other questions about your Retirement Pension. We tell you below what will happen if

- you stop working before you reach State Pension Age:

If you stop working on 31 March 1997 then this would not affect the amount of State Retirement Pension you can expect to get when you reach State Pension Age."

It could be argued that that statement was misleading in failing to take into account the potential effect of the revaluation rule adopted by a scheme for those leaving pensionable service.

29. There was a warning on the third page of the forecast in these terms:

"Please note that this forecast is only an ESTIMATE of your future entitlement to Retirement Pension. It could be affected by any future changes in legislation or by any changes in your personal circumstances. It is based on the information we hold when we prepare your forecast. If this information has been incorrectly recorded on your record, your entitlement may be different."

There was also a statement that the forecast was right if the claimant's date of birth was 7 January 1937 and he went on working and paying full-rate NI contributions. That last condition cannot sensibly be applied, as the forecast had already taken into account that he had enough qualifying years for a full basic pension and the estimates of payable additional pension were based only on work and contributions down to 5 April 1997. Then what appears to have affected the accuracy of the forecast is not any change in the claimant's personal circumstances or the effect of future changes in legislation. The effect appears to be the result of legislative rules in existence and of long standing in February 1997.

30. There was a brief discussion at the oral hearing about the Department's procedure for dealing with complaints about having been misled by misstatements of misrepresentations by officers and about the terms on which compensation may be paid. None of that is a matter for me and I do not know any details of the procedure. I merely record that the procedure is a reflection both of the Department's proper concern with standards of good administration and of its potential legal liability for loss, including financial loss, resulting from negligent misstatements made by its officers. I am sure that Miss Haywood was able to provide the claimant with relevant practical information. It is not for me to offer any advice to the claimant about what steps he might want to take either immediately or after he has received the further explanations and statements which I trust will follow from paragraph 25 above.

(Signed) J Mesher

Commissioner

Date: 17 December 2003