The Armed Forces and Reserve Forces (Compensation Scheme) Order 2011

Review - ignorance or mistake

59.—(1) Subject to paragraph (2), any decision of the Secretary of State may be reviewed at any time (including on the application of the claimant) if the Secretary of State is satisfied that the decision was given in ignorance of, or was based on, a mistake as to a material fact or of a mistake as to the law.

(2) This article only applies—

(a) if the material fact was knowable at the time the decision was made and was disclosed to the Secretary of State at that time;

(b) if the ignorance or mistake was the ignorance or mistake of the Secretary of State;

(c) where the ignorance or mistake relates to the diagnosis of an injury, where the correct diagnosis was knowable given the state of medical knowledge existing at the time the diagnosis was made.

(3) On a review under this article, the Secretary of State may—

(a) make a new decision which maintains the decision under review (“the original decision”); or

(b) revise that decision by—

(i) awarding benefit where no award of benefit was made in the original decision;

(ii) changing the descriptor awarded so as to maintain, increase or decrease the amount awarded in the original decision;

(iii) increasing or decreasing the amount awarded in the original decision or so as to cancel an award of benefit;

(iv) changing the date on which an award of benefit becomes payable.

(4) The decision of the Secretary of State on a review under this article and the reasons for the decision must—

(a) be in writing;

(b) be given or sent to the claimant; and

(c) inform the applicant of any right the claimant may have—

(i) to a reconsideration of the decision under article 53; and

(ii) to appeal to the appropriate tribunal under section 5A(1) of the Pensions Appeal Tribunals Act 1943.