Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of personal independence payment claimants have had their claim accepted at appeal following an initial rejection, in (a) Rother Valley, (b) South Yorkshire, and (c) nationwide in the latest period for which data is available.

The table below provides the information requested for initial decisions following a Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessment for the Rother Valley Parliamentary constituency, the four local authority areas that make up South Yorkshire and Great Britain for all PIP initial disallowance decisions.

Initial decisions: April 2013 to 30th June 2020; appeals: to 30th September 2020

Figures are rounded to the nearest 10.

Percentages are to the nearest 1% and based on the total number of initial disallowance decisions following a PIP assessment.

Initial disallowance decisions following a PIP assessment reflect outcomes prior to any Mandatory Reconsideration (MR) and appeal action. They do not include Award Review or Change of Circumstance decisions, or decisions prior to an assessment being completed.

Claimants who have received benefit decisions more recently may not yet have had time to complete the claimant journey and progress to appeal. The volumes of appeals for the more recent periods of initial decision could increase as claimants’ progress to MR and appeal.

A lapsed appeal is where DWP changed the decision in the customer’s favour after an appeal was lodged but before it was heard at tribunal.

The appeal figures will include some decisions which are changed at a Mandatory Reconsideration, where the claimant continues to appeal for a higher PIP award, are then changed again at appeal.

South Yorkshire data consists of the four local authority areas of Barnsley, Doncaster, Sheffield and Rotherham.