PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Personal Independence Payment: Appeals (9 April 2019)

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average clearance time has been for personal independence payment appeals at tribunal in (a) Battersea and (b) nationally in each of the last five years for which data is available.

Asked by:
Marsha De Cordova (Labour)

Information about the average clearance times for personal independence payment (PIP) appeals to 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 clearance times for PIP appeals at (a) the hearing venue covering Battersea and (b) nationally from 2015/16; data for the preceding two years are provided below.

Personal Independence Payment1
	Fox Court 2	National
Financial Year	Average Clearance Time (in weeks)	Average Clearance Time (in weeks)
2013-2014	~	9
2014-2015	15	14

1. PIP was introduced in April 2013 and replaced Disability Living Allowance
2. Appeals for those people living in the Battersea area are heard in the Fox Court venue

~ There were insufficient cases in this period to provide a statistically robust average

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.

Clearance times are calculated from receipt of the appeal to its final disposal. An appeal is not necessarily disposed of at its first hearing. The final disposal decision on the appeal may be reached after an earlier hearing had been adjourned (which may be directed by the judge for a variety of reasons, such as to seek further evidence), or after an earlier hearing date had been postponed (again, for a variety of reasons, often at the request of the appellant). An appeal may also have been decided at an earlier date by the First-tier Tribunal, only for the case to have gone on to the Upper Tribunal, to be returned once again to the First-tier for its final disposal.

Latest figures (to December 2018) indicate that since PIP was introduced, 3.9 million decisions have been made, and of these 10% have been appealed and 5% have been overturned at tribunals.

Answered by:
Edward Argar (Conservative)
24 April 2019