Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average cost to her Department is to process (a) paper and (b) oral hearings for mandatory reconsiderations for employment and support allowance.

The average cost to the Department to process a mandatory reconsideration for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) in the last full financial year was £70. This is a combined figure for Work Capability Assessment (WCA) and Non-Work Capability Assessment cases.

All mandatory reconsiderations are ‘paper based’, although we may speak to the customer to get more information.

The costs provided are taken from the DWP’s Activity Based Models¹ at an Operating Costs level which includes direct costs relating to staff undertaking the activities (staff, and local non-staff costs only). They do not include higher level support costs such as management and corporate overheads relating to administration activities.

¹Please note that data supplied from the Departmental Activity Based Models is derived from unpublished management information which was collected for internal Departmental use only, and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standards. It should therefore be treated with caution and as an indication and not as a definitive cost. The Departmental Activity Based models are a snapshot of how many people were identified as undertaking specified activities as assigned by line managers. The data is frequently revised and changes to the definitions affect comparisons over time.