Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, in reference to the Answer of 19 July 2018 to Question 162165 on Personal Independence Payment: Epilepsy, what the most up to date figures are on the number of people with epilepsy who were in receipt of disability living allowance who (a) did not receive an award as a result of a reassessment for personal independence payment and (b) then received an award at either mandatory reconsideration or on appeal.

The information requested for Disability Living Allowance (DLA) reassessments is shown in the table below.

Personal Independence Payment (PIP) initial decisions, Mandatory Reconsiderations (MRs) and appeals for claimants with a primary disabling condition of Epilepsy, April 2013 to September 2018, Great Britain

Under PIP, 27 per cent of working age claimants with epilepsy recorded as their primary disabling condition receive the highest level of support compared to 6 per cent under Disability Living Allowance when PIP was introduced.

Notes

Data is based on primary disabling condition as recorded on the PIP computer system. Claimants may often have multiple disabling conditions upon which the decision is based but only the primary condition is shown in these statistics. Question 162165 defined epilepsy as people who have Epilepsy Partial seizures (with status epilepticus in last 12 months) and Generalised seizures (with status epilepticus in last 12 months) listed as their main condition. To answer this question the definition of epilepsy has been expanded to include the following five additional conditions: Cataplexy, Generalised seizures (without status epilepticus in last 12 months), Narcolepsy, Partial seizures (without status epilepticus in last 12 months) and Seizures - unclassified.

PIP data includes normal rules and special rules for the terminally ill claimants.

Data has been rounded to the nearest 10.

Appeals data taken from the DWP PIP computer system’s management information. Therefore this data may differ from that held by Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service for various reasons such as delays in data recording and other methodological differences in collating and preparing statistics.

Decisions overturned at appeal may include a number of appeals that have been lapsed (which is where DWP changed the decision after an appeal was lodged but before it was heard at Tribunal).

Some decisions which are changed at MR, and where the claimant continues to appeal for a higher PIP award, are then changed again at tribunal appeal. Therefore the number of people who had a decision changed at MR and the number of people who had a decision changed at tribunal appeal cannot be added together.

Claimants who have received benefit decisions more recently may not yet have had time to complete the claimant journey and progress to appeal.