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Awards in Respect of Death

Document Cited authorities 4 Cited in Related
AuthorAndrew Bano
Pages81-89

Chapter 10


Awards in Respect of Death

ENTITLEMENT TO DEATH BENEFITS Conditions of entitlement
10.1 Awards in respect of death under Part V of the SPO 2006 are payable where death is ‘due to service’.1Whether article 40 or article 41 applies to the claim depends on the date of death, rather than on the date of claim, so that article 40 applies in all cases where death occurs within 7 years of the date of termination of service, and article 41 applies in all cases where death occurs after the end of that period.

10.2 Awards in respect of death are also payable in the following cases:

(i) where death has been accepted as due to service under earlier schemes;2

(ii) where death occurs after 22 November 1916 and constant attendance allowance was payable to the scheme member at the date of death, or would have been payable if the claimant had not been in a hospital or other institution;3

(iii) where the member’s degree of disablement was 80% or more and unemployability allowance4was payable to the member at the date of death, or the member was engaged in remunerative work for a period not exceeding 104 weeks and article 12(3)(b), (c) and (f) of the SPO 2006 applied to the member.5

1See paras 3.1–3.4 and 3.19 and Chapters 4 and 5.

2SPO 2006, art 22(2).

3SPO 2006, art 22(3).

4See para 9.7.

5SPO 2006, para 22(4).

82 War Pensions and Armed Forces Compensation – Law and Practice

Under article 22(6) of the SPO 2006, only the amount by which a death benefit exceeds the amount of any allowance, grant or other payment out of public funds payable during the lifetime of a member is payable if the payment continues after the member’s death. In Secretary of State for Defence v CM (WP),6Judge Rowland held that neither constant attendance allowance nor unemployability supplement were ‘payable’ in the absence of any claims for those allowances having been made prior to the deaths of the claimants.

SURVIVING SPOUSES AND CIVIL PARTNERS Rates of pension
Basic pension
10.3 The rates of pension payable to surviving spouses and to surviving civil partners of members of the armed forces whose death was due to service are set out in Tables 1 to 5 of Part II of Schedule 2 to the SPO 2006.7Within each table, the amount of pension payable is determined by which of the Groups in Part I of Schedule 1 is applicable to the member’s rank or status at the date of death, although the rates are the same for the spouses and civil partners of all members in Groups 12 to 17 (non-commissioned ranks). Tables 1 to 3 apply in the following cases:

(i) where a surviving spouse or civil partner has attained the age of 40 years (or is the surviving spouse or surviving civil partner of an officer who was a member of the armed forces between 14 August 1914 and 30 September 1921); or

(ii) where a surviving spouse or civil partner is in receipt of an allowance awarded in respect of a child under article 28, 30 or 318(allowance for children under the child’s age limit, award for children who have attained the child’s age limit and awards to or in respect of ineligible members of the families of unemployable pensioners); or

(iii) where a surviving spouse or civil partner was in receipt of an allowance awarded under article 28 in respect of a child of whom that person is the parent9until the date on which the child attains the age of 16 years, or where, in the opinion of the Secretary of State in any other case, that person should be treated as having been in receipt of such an allowance until that date; or

6[2017] UKUT 8 (AAC), [2017] AACR 27.

7SPO 2006, art 23(1).

8See paras 10.13 and 10.15–10.16.

9‘Parent’ is defined in SPO 2006, Sch 6, para 44.

(iv) a child in respect of whom the surviving spouse or civil partner was awarded an allowance under article 28 or article 3110dies before attaining the age of 16 years, for a period of 13 weeks beginning with the date of the child’s death; or

(v) the surviving spouse or civil partner is incapable of self-support.

In all other cases, the rates of pension payable are those set out in Tables 4 and 5 of Part II of Schedule 2 to the SPO 2006.

Supplementary pension
10.4 A supplementary pension at the rate specified in Tables 6 and 7 of Part II of Schedule...

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