Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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1 . Officials - Remuneration - Family allowances - Education allowance - Conditions for granting

( Staff Regulations, Annex VII, Art . 3 )

2 . Officials - Recovery of undue payment - Conditions - Patent absence of due reason for the payment - Meaning

( Staff Regulations, Art . 85 )

3 . Officials - Recovery of undue payment - Protection of legitimate expectations - Conditions

( Staff Regulations, Art . 85 )

Summary

1 . Article 3 of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations, which requires a child in respect of whom the education allowance is requested to be "in regular full-time attendance at an educational establishment", must be interpreted as meaning that the student concerned must actually follow the programme of instruction laid down by the rules of the educational establishment attended .

A training period completed by the student concerned cannot be treated as equivalent to regular attendance at the courses and the conditions for entitlement to the education allowance are therefore not fulfilled unless the training period is regarded by the university as constituting an integral part of the programme for the purpose of obtaining the final diploma . The mere consent of the educational establishment or any support on its part, on the other hand, is not sufficient to justify the grant of the allowance .

2 . The words "patently such" which characterize the fact of overpayment giving rise to recovery under Article 85 of the Staff Regulations do not mean that the official need make no effort to reflect or check .

The condition concerning the patent nature of the fact of overpayment of an education allowance, the award of which is liable to be modified on the basis of information which only the official is in a position to notify, is fulfilled where, instead of checking with the competent authorities, he merely relies on a questionable personal interpretation of the Staff Regulations and, in breach of his express undertaking to notify the administration of any change liable to affect his entitlement to the allowance, on the understanding that any sum wrongly received will be deducted from his salary, omits to inform the competent department forthwith of the undeniably important change in his family circumstances .

3 . An official' s submissions based on infringement both of Article 85 of the Staff Regulations and of the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations, a principle of which Article 85 is itself a reflection, cannot be upheld as against a decision ordering, within a reasonable time, the recovery of an improperly granted education allowance, where it is by reason of the official' s failure to fulfil his obligation to give immediate and proper notice of the change in his family circumstances that the administration had decided to award the education allowance giving rise to recovery .