Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 2 July 2019 to Question 270341 on Personal Independence Payment, what improvements to processing mandatory reconsiderations have been made since her Department adopted the quality-driven approach.

We have been engaging with stakeholders to explore how we can improve the Mandatory Reconsideration process. We have also recently implemented a new operational approach in PIP where we are proactively contacting claimants, where appropriate, to see if there is information that would enable us to change the decision. Early indications are that this is helping decision makers.

Further to this we have already been working on reviewing cases at the appeal stage and where new evidence is provided that changes the decision we are lapsing cases so that claimants don’t need to wait for a hearing.