Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment her Department has made of trends in the time taken for a personal independence payment appeal to be heard at Tribunal after an application to attend the Tribunal is made.
I accept that waiting times for proceedings in the First-tier Tribunal (Social Security and Child Support) (SSCS) service remain higher than we would like. The impact of the Coronavirus outbreak has significantly increased the challenges we currently face.
We have taken a number of measures to improve SSCS performance:
We have also introduced emergency measures to ensure the tribunal can continue to function safely during the pandemic:
The decision on how a hearing is conducted is a matter for the judge, who will determine how best to uphold the interests of justice. In considering the suitability of video/audio hearings to replace face to face hearings, judges will consider matters such as the nature of the dispute at stake and any issues the use of video/audio technology may present for participants in the hearing, having regard to individuals’ needs.
Statistics on the performance in the First-tier Tribunal (Social Security and Child Support) (SSCS) are regularly published in the statistical bulletin, Tribunal Statistics Quarterly, which are available at the following link: www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics.
Publication of SSCS statistics is currently suspended due to data quality issues identified as the Tribunal is migrated to a new operational system. These data will be made available as soon as these issues have been resolved and data quality is assured.