OT04696 | PRT: administration: appeals against claim decisions - part and final decisions

Appeal Rights

There is no limit to the number of part decisions which can be made on a claim. This flows from the wording of the final part of OTA75\SCH5\PARA3(1) - “and where the decision relates to part only of the expenditure claimed or claimed as qualifying, the Board shall give a further notice or notices in relation to the remainder”.

The appeal provisions at OTA75\SCH5\PARA5 therefore operate in respect of each decision independently if there is more than one decision on a claim. If an appeal is made on the grounds that the amount allowed in the decision notice is less than the amount claimed this should be construed as meaning less than that part of the claim to which the decision relates. It cannot therefore mean the entire claim including that part on which no decision has been made. Consequently an appeal right does not arise where there has been merely a reservation of a decision on a particular item of expenditure or expenditure qualifying for supplement. There must be a formal disallowance for there to be a right of appeal.

If there are several part decisions each containing a formal disallowance then the claimant can either appeal against each notice of disallowance individually, on the ground that the expenditure allowed in it is less than the part of the expenditure claimed to which the notice of decision relates, or he can (subject to the time limit) wait until the whole of the claim has been dealt with and appeal on the grounds that the total of the expenditure allowed is less than the amount claimed. He will then, in effect, be appealing against each decision in which some expenditure was disallowed.