PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Social Security and Child Support Tribunal: Costs (5 September 2022)

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an estimate of the average cost per disposed case in the Social Security & Child Support Tribunal in each year since 2012-13 for (a) all cases, (b) Work Capability Assessment cases and (c) Personal Independent Payment decision cases.

Asked by:
Marsha De Cordova (Labour)

Regarding part (a) of the question, the estimated average cost per case disposed of by the Social Security and Child Support Tribunal in each year since 2012-13 for all cases was:

	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22
Total Cost (£)	139,720,428	87,357,366	92,554,070	105,776,214	121,482,762	117,804,233	121,771,734	104,792,533	100,057,460
Total Disposals - all cases	543,609	150,978	156,535	190,071	214,478	206,402	192,352	136,080	91,690
Average Cost per disposal	257	579	591	557	566	571	633	770	1,091

Total disposals include clearances of appeals that take place at hearing, or those cleared without a hearing. This estimated average cost per case is therefore based on all case types and will not be a true indication of unit cost by type.

Financial information is held on the cost of the overall First-Tier Tribunal (Social Security and Child Support Appeal), which includes the cost of administering Work Capability Assessment cases and Personal Independence Payment decision appeals but is not available at the requested level of granularity to provide an average cost per disposal for individual benefit types.

Answered by:
Rachel Maclean (Conservative)
13 September 2022