Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to employ more staff and reduce the length of time personal independence payment claimants have to wait for their appeal to be heard.

The First-tier Tribunal (Social Security and Child Support) (SSCS), administered by HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS), administers appeals from appellants living in England, Scotland, and Wales. The Northern Ireland Courts & Tribunals Service administers appeals for appellants living in Northern Ireland.

The provision of staff does not increase capacity in the tribunal, the critical factor is the recruitment and availability of judicial office holders. Consequently, HMCTS has been working with the tribunal’s judiciary both to appoint additional judges and panel members and to list more Personal Independence Payment (PIP) appeals into each Tribunal session.

Additional fee-paid judicial office holders have been recruited: 250 judges across the First-tier Tribunal, 125 disability qualified members and up to 230 medical members. In addition, more PIP appeals are being listed per session and case-management “triage” sessions have been introduced, with the aim of reducing the time taken for appeals to reach final determination. All these measures will increase the capacity of the tribunal, with the aim of reducing waiting times for appellants.

HMCTS is also developing a new digital system with a view to enabling speedier processing of appeals and a better service for all parties to the proceedings. Information on the new digital service can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-online-service-launched-for-pip-appeals.

Finally, HMCTS is working with the Department for Work and Pensions to understand what could be done to reduce the number of appeals being submitted to the tribunal, through their focus on improving decision-making and the mandatory reconsideration process.

Latest figures (to September 2018) indicate that since PIP was introduced, 3.7 million decisions have been made, and of these 10% have been appealed and 5% have been overturned at tribunals.