Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants of (a) personal independence payment and (b) employment and support allowance in Blaenau Gwent constituency were successful in appeals in relation to their entitlement in (i) 2017-18 and (ii) since April 2018.

Personal Independence Payment (PIP) appeals -

In the Blaenau Gwent constituency, (i) 130 claimants were successful in appeals in 2017-18 and (ii) 30 claimants were successful in appeals between April and June 2018, the latest date for which statistics have been published. These figures include all PIP appeals; so they will contain appeals where claimants appealed for a higher PIP award as well as those appeals against a disallowance decision. Figures have been rounded to the nearest 10.

Appeals data taken from the DWP PIP computer system’s management information. Therefore this appeal data may differ from that held by Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service for various reasons such as delays in data recording and other methodological differences in collating and preparing statistics.

The Parliamentary Constituency geography relates to the origin of the claim (i.e. derived from claimant’s postcode) rather than the location of where the tribunal was.

Decisions overturned at appeal may include a number of appeals that have been lapsed (which is where DWP changed the decision after an appeal was lodged but before it was heard at Tribunal).

Since PIP was introduced, 3.5m decisions have been made nationally up to June 2018. Of these, 9% have been appealed and 4% have been overturned.

Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) appeals -

Information on appeal outcome by claim start date and Parliamentary Constituency is

available on Stat-Xplore under “ESA Work Capability Assessments”.

https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/

Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore can be found here:

https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/index.html

Between April 2014 and March 2018, 3.5m ESA (post WCA) decisions have been made nationally, of these 8% have been appealed and 4% have been overturned.