First-Tier Tribunal: Decisions

LE 11

From 2020

This series contains decisions of the seven chambers of the Upper Tribunal:

• General Regulatory Chamber,
• Health, Education and Social Care Chamber (including tribunals for Care Standards, Mental Health, Primary Health Lists, and Special Educational Needs and Disability),
• Immigration and Asylum Chamber,
• Property Chamber,
• Social Entitlement Chamber (including the Asylum Support Tribunal, Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal, and Social Security and Child Support Tribunal),
• Tax Chamber,
• War Pensions and Armed Forces Compensation Chamber.

These decisions are written and handed down (issued) by tribunal judges at the conclusion of cases. They typically include significant detail about the facts of the cases and the reasons for the decisions reached.

As of 2022, decisions are typically created as Microsoft Word documents. These are transformed into the XML format LegalDocML for publication online. For a small proportion of judgments, supporting documents, such as orders or press summaries, also exist.

Published decisions are available at caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk.

UKFTT

Public Record(s)

English

digital record(s)

Published tribunal decisions are made available by the direction of the tribunal judges. They can be used under the terms and conditions of the Open Justice Licence.

Open unless otherwise stated

In 2021 British and Irish Legal Information Institute

From 2022 Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service

Topics

Mental illness

Taxation

Migration

Computing

Pay and pensions

Armed Forces (General Administration)

From Spring 2022 onwards, tribunals have begun to transfer decisions directly to The National Archives in digital form. A set of earlier decisions was supplied by BAILII in Autumn 2021; this included both decisions supplied directly to BAILII by the tribunal and decisions obtained from other sources.

The National Archives receives and publishes tribunal decisions on an ongoing basis.

All tribunal decisions and, where applicable, supporting documents transferred to The National Archives are selected for permanent preservation.

The First-Tier Tribunal was estabished in 2008 under the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, taking on the functions of various previous tribunals. Since 2011, it has been administered by HM Courts and Tribunals Service. The First-Tier Tribunal mainly hears appeals from citizens against decisions made by government departments or agencies although proceedings in the Property Chamber are on a party-v-party basis. Appeals against decisions of the First-Tier Tribunal are heard by the Upper Tribunal.

Many tribunal decisions have been routinely published on the tribunals' websites. Decisions have also been re-published by legal publishers. The British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII), founded in 2000, became one of the largest and most popular sources of freely-available case law information.

In June 2021, the Ministry of Justice made a policy announcement that The National Archives was to store, preserve and publish court judgments and tribunal decisions for England and Wales. An Alpha version of the publication service was launched in April 2022.

The Open Justice Licence was created in 2022 to support the re-use of information from published case law.