Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of mandatory reconsideration periods have exceeded 14 days; and if he will make a statement.

The Department is collecting information to understand how the introduction of mandatory reconsideration is operating, including completion timescales. However, this data is not sufficiently robust and reliable to make available.

In the production of new statistics, which all the above would be, the Department works to guidelines set by the UK Statistics Authority to ensure we are able to publish statistics that meet the high quality standards expected. Departmental statisticians need to assure themselves of the quality of administrative data sources before releasing information as Official statistics, and before the exact timing and format of statistics can be confirmed. .