Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what performance benchmarks his Department has put in place for disposal and decision-making following a request for mandatory reconsideration of a decision for employment and support allowance being lodged.
There is no statutory time limit for DWP to complete a request for mandatory reconsideration. We deliberately do not have one as each case will be considered on its merits. Some will require days, others will require longer, for example to gather additional evidence. We want to ensure we take the right amount of time to get the right decision. Our expectation remains that the process should be completed without any unnecessary delay.
We intend to develop proposals for internal performance benchmarks once we have processed more volumes of mandatory reconsiderations, and reliable data is available on which to base an internal target.