Terms & Conditions

[emmadring]

I had a rather bizarre conversation with the Tribunals Service at Sutton earlier today. Our area is split by postcode between Cardif Tribunals Service and Sutton Tribunals Service (or so I thought).

The clerk who called me was asking whether I still wanted an appeal listed with them even though it was not their area. He said that appeals are listed based on the LA’s postcode, not the appellants postcode. On that basis we would only ever deal with Cardiff.
I said that was ridiculous, I’ve never had any appeals returned because they were from the wrong area, and I attended two tribunals with ‘Sutton’ postcodes only last week!
He mentioned something about a quality group and tried to put me through to someone else, but she was unavailable.

Has anyone else been told this? It would be great for us if it really was true, as the ‘Cardiff’ venue is much easier for us (and most of our claimants) to get to than the ‘Sutton’ venue.

If this is really true then why haven’t we been informed?! I’m going to chase it up tomorrow.

[aosulliv]

Appeals are heard where it is easiest for the claimant to get to (or so I thought)

[markp]

I, too, thought that the claimant’s address governed where the tribunal was heard, (after all the LA can afford to travel further with their vast resources!!), and seeing that it is a ‘legal’ process and the County Court will transfer hearings to the Court nearest the defendant’s home, I had assumed that TTS would follow suit.

Obviously not, it would seem.

However, ours are all started by TTS Birmingham, although we have had a hearing in Cardiff after the appellant had moved (if I remember correctly) and a lot of our paper hearings are heard in Nottingham and Coventry.

Emma, are you sure that the TTS clerk wasn’t referring to the admin. side of TTS procedures rather than the hearing, which should relate to the appellant’s postcode.

Do I know what I'm doing? The jury's out on that........................

[emmadring]

To be honest I’m not sure exactly what he was referring to, and I’m not sure he really knew either, he sounded quite confused! I think he was talking about which TTS centre should deal with listing the hearing and therefore where the hearing should be held – the two TTS centres we deal with always list our appeals at the venue which is in their ‘area’ – they certainly don’t seem to consider whether it would be easier for the claimant to get to another centre (based on train routes etc).

Will try and chase it up this morning and will let you know if I get anywhere!

[emmadring]

Just to let you all know the outcome of this:

First I spoke to the quality manager at TTS Sutton. She was certain that appeals should be dealt with based on the LA’s postcode – i.e. sent to the TTS centre which deals with that area. She said this had been the policy for quite some time becaus eo f the funding for POs – it was easier just to pay the appekllant for longer distances.

I then called Cardiff TTS to check what they thought. The clerk I spoke to said he thought it was “a load of old rubbish” and that he was sure that appeals are dealt with based on the appellant’s potcode. I said I thought that too and I had never had any returned as being in the wrong area!

So no resolution at all! I’m just going to carry on referring appeals as before, based on claimant’s postcode.

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