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) Cynon Valley, (b) Wales, and (c) the UK in 2020.

The table below gives the number of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claimants who had an initial disallowance decision changed at appeal in 2020.

Due to the time taken for an appeal to be lodged and then cleared after the initial decision, information for appeals as a percentage of initial decisions made in 2020 is not shown.

The Northern Irish Assembly has devolved responsibility for social security benefits. The responsibility for statistics in Northern Ireland lies with the Department for Communities: http://www.communities-ni.gov.uk

Notes:

• Figures have been rounded to the nearest 10.
• This data covers initial decisions following a PIP assessment only (New Claims or DLA Reassessments), and does not include applications which end before that (for example, due to failure to return required paperwork or attend an assessment) or decisions made at an Award Review or Change of Circumstance.
• Appeal lapsed is where DWP changed the decision (in the customer’s favour) after an appeal was lodged but before it was heard at a tribunal hearing.
• Some decisions which are changed at the Mandatory Reconsideration (MR) stage, and where the claimant continues to appeal for a higher PIP award, are then changed again at tribunal appeal. Therefore, these figures may include a number of initial disallowances which were awarded at MR but where the claimant continued to appeal for a higher award.