Personal Independence Payment: Medical Examinations

(asked on 25th April 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the (a) average waiting time and (b) longest waiting time was for a mandatory reconsideration after a personal independence payment assessment in (i) the UK, (ii) Wales and (iii) Newport East constituency in each of the last seven years for which data is available.


Answered by
Justin Tomlinson Portrait
Justin Tomlinson
This question was answered on 30th April 2019

Information about the extremes of a distribution (e.g. the longest clearance times) risks being disclosive. We would not release this information publicly. Therefore we have presented information on the average clearance time and for the upper quartile of clearance times.

Measures to reduce the number of outstanding MRs include:

  • Age profiles of outstanding work are managed at a national level to ensure that cases which have been outstanding for longest are actioned first.
  • Resource levels dedicated to the clearance of MRs have been regularly reviewed with significant recruitment, training and redeployment undertaken to support reduced clearance times.

MR is a key element of the decision making process for both the Department and claimants, and whilst ensuring they make quality decisions, decision makers work hard to clear applications without delay. Gathering the right evidence is critical at the MR stage if decisions are not to go to appeal; and we are reviewing our processes to not only obtain this, but to do so whilst continuing to make timely decisions.

The Northern Irish Assembly has devolved responsibility for social security benefits. The responsibility for statistics in Northern Ireland lies with the Department for Communities: http://www.communities-ni.gov.uk

Information on the median and upper quartile clearance times for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) Mandatory Reconsiderations (MRs) are provided in the tables below.

Table 1: Median Clearance Times, in Calendar Days, for PIP MRs, Normal Rules, by Financial Year of MR Clearance

Financial Year of MR Clearance

Great Britain

Wales

Newport East

2013/14

27

28

#

2014/15

33

29

31

2015/16

24

25

23

2016/17

33

33

29

2017/18

29

30

29

April 2018 - January 2019

37

38

38

Table 2: Upper Quartile of Clearance Times, in Calendar Days, for PIP MRs, Normal Rules, by Financial Year of MR Clearance

Financial Year of MR Clearance

Great Britain

Wales

Newport East

2013/14

42

46

#

2014/15

54

43

43

2015/16

36

36

36

2016/17

50

47

44

2017/18

42

43

41

April 2018 - January 2019

51

55

57

The figures cover clearance times for all types of PIP MRs including those where the claimant was disallowed PIP for reasons other than failing the PIP assessment, such as disallowances pre-referral to an Assessment Provider due to non return of the PIP Part 2 form within the time limit, and disallowances post-referral to the Assessment Provider where the customer failed to attend the assessment.

This data on PIP MR clearance times is unpublished data. It should be used with caution and it may be subject to future revision.

# denotes less than 50 MRs cleared in the time period.

Reticulating Splines