Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who has responsibility for holding data relating to mandatory reconsideration of benefit decisions.
Answered by Chloe Smith
Various divisions within the Department hold responsibility for the recording, use, and management of these data items.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the oral statement of 26 May 2022 by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether people who are successful in an (a) assessment, (b) mandatory reconsideration and (c) appeal to the first tier tribunal for (i) Employment Support Allowance, (ii) Universal Credit limited capability for work and work related activity and (iii) Personal Independence Payment will be (A) automatically paid or (B) need to make an application for a backdated payment of the cost of living payment of £650.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
People who have entitlement to a qualifying benefit in relation to the qualifying day - as set out in the Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill, which was introduced to the House of Commons on 15 June – will automatically receive the relevant Cost of Living Payment. This includes people whose entitlement is established later – for example as a result of a mandatory reconsideration or an appeal or an assessment which is in progress when the first payments are made.
The guidance with the full list of support can be found at:
Cost of living support factsheet: 26 May 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Kate Osamor (Independent - Edmonton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reason her Department would allow (a) an Employment and Support Allowance, (b) Personal Independence Payment and (c) Universal Credit appeal to lapse.
Answered by Chloe Smith
When a claimant submits an appeal, a DWP decision maker will review their case again including any new evidence submitted and decide whether they think the decision under appeal remains the correct one. If the decision maker makes a new, more advantageous decision then the appeal can lapse.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the cost to her Department of mandatory reconsiderations for employment support allowance and personal independence payment benefits claims in (a) 2019-20 and (b) 2020-21.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The information for the Financial years covered by the request are detailed in the tables below:
| 2019-20 | 2020-21 (£m) |
PIP | £23.7 | £24.8 |
ESA | £6.6 | £1.6 |
Cost figures are rounded to the nearest £0.1m
Data Source: ABM
The cost figures quoted are estimated DWP level 1 operating costs, including both direct delivery staff and non-staff costs. Non-staff costs are only those costs incurred in local cost centres, relating to direct delivery staff.
Please note that the data supplied is from the Departmental Activity Based Models. This data is derived from unpublished management information, which was collected for internal Departmental use only, and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standards. It should therefore be treated with caution. The Departmental Activity Based staffing models are a snapshot of how many people were identified as undertaking specified activities as assigned by line managers.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the effect of changes in the level of the cost of processing mandatory reconsiderations of claimants on the number of requests being processed.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The number of forecasted MRs processed each month is based on the number of forecasted MRs received each month. The forecast methodology of the numbers of MRs received each month varies from benefit to benefit. Broadly, analysts use factors such as claim rate, caseload, historical MR rates, and decision outcomes e.g. disallowed cases. Analysts review these factors at each forecasting round to improve the quality of forecasts.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of people who appealed to a tribunal against a benefit decision in the most recent 12-month period for which data are available were awarded benefit by the tribunal.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The information requested is not readily available and to provide would incur disproportionate cost.
Some information regarding volumes and proportions of people who appealed to a tribunal and were awarded benefit can be found in the Tribunal Statistics quarterly main tables published by the Ministry of Justice, available at the link below:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics#tribunal-statistics-quarterly
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of people who registered an appeal against their benefit decision were awarded benefit at the first stage of appeal in the most recent 12 months for which data is available.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The information requested is not readily available and to provide would incur disproportionate cost.
Some information regarding volumes and proportions of people who appealed to a tribunal and were awarded benefit can be found in the Tribunal Statistics quarterly main tables published by the Ministry of Justice, available at the link below:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics#tribunal-statistics-quarterly
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people and what proportion of people who appealed to a tribunal against a benefit decision in the most recent 12-month period for which data are available were awarded benefit by the tribunal, by parliamentary constituency.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of people who registered an appeal against their benefit decision in the most recent 12 month period for which data is available, were awarded benefit at the first stage of appeal, by parliamentary constituency.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of appeals to the tribunals service in (a) Coventry, (b) the West Midlands and (c) England in respect of (i) personal independence payments, (ii) employment and support allowance, (iii) jobseeker's allowance and (iv) universal credit were successful in each of the last three years.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
Information about the outcomes of appeals in the First-tier Tribunal (Social Security and Child Support) (SSCS) is published at:
www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics
SSCS appeals are listed into the hearing venue nearest to the appellant’s home address. The published data (which can be viewed at the link above) provide information about the outcomes of (i) Personal Independence Payment (PIP), (ii) Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and (iv) Universal Credit (UC) appeals for hearing venues covering (a) Coventry, (b) the West Midlands and (c) England for the period requested.
The table below contains this information for (iii) Job Seekers Allowance (JSA):
| Coventry | West Midlands1 | England2 |
2018/19 | ~ | 25% | 34% |
2019/20 | 50% | 27% | 39% |
2020/21 | ~ | ~ | 27% |
Q1 2021/22P | 100% | ~ | 17% |
Q2 2021/22p | 86% | 39% | 30% |
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Notes:
SSCS data are normally registered to the venue nearest to the appellant’s home address. We cannot retrieve data based on the appellant’s actual address but can produce reports detailing the numbers of cases that were dealt with at one of our Regional centres or heard at a specific venue. The proportion of successful appeals is based on the number of cases found in favour of the appellant at a tribunal hearing as a percentage of the cases heard at a tribunal hearing. |
1West Midlands includes the venues: Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Walsall, Coventry, Nuneaton, Stoke, Telford, Hereford and Worcester. | |||||
2 Excludes SSCS Scotland Region and Wales Region. |
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~ Equates to a value of fewer than five |
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P Provisional, in line with published data |
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Although care is taken when processing and analysing the data, the details are subject to inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale case management system and are the best data that are available. These data may differ slightly to that of the published statistics as these data were run on a different date. | |||||