Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of personal independence payment and employment and support allowance decisions made by (a) ATOS, and (b) Maximus were overturned on appeal in each year for which data is available.

Assessment Providers do not make the benefit decisions which are appealed to Her Majesty's Court and Tribunal Service (HMCTS). They provide assessment reports to the department’s decision makers who use that as evidence to make the actual benefit decision. It is that decision which is appealed.

PIP assessments are delivered by IAS (formally known as Atos) and Capita. Information on the proportion of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) decisions following an IAS assessment that are overturned on appeal is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.

ESA Work Capability Assessments (WCA) are delivered by the Centre for Health and Disability Assessments (CHDA), operated by Maximus. CHDA began delivering WCAs from March 2015. Experimental statistics on the number of ESA (WCA) completed and the number where the decision was overturned on appeal by period of claim start are available in Table 17 of the publication “ESA: outcomes of Work Capability Assessments including mandatory reconsiderations and appeals: March 2019”, available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/esa-outcomes-of-work-capability-assessments-including-mandatory-reconsiderations-and-appeals-march-2019