Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to (a) improve response times and (b) ensure mandatory reconsiderations are adequately assessed.

Whilst we aim to make the right decision as early as possible in the claim journey, Mandatory Reconsideration (MR) is a key element of the Department’s decision-making process. MR offers customers an opportunity to challenge decisions and provide any additional information which may be relevant to their claim.

In law there is no time limit within which a MR decision must be made. This reflects the overarching policy that the focus should be on making the right decision and not on the speed of response. Decisions should always be made without delay, but if the Decision Maker believes more time is needed to gather or consider evidence, they must give themselves that time to ensure they are confident that the decision made is correct. However, for PIP we are recruiting MR decision makers and making overtime available to increase productivity.

We have a multi-tiered Quality Assurance Framework to ensure MR decisions are legal and payments are accurate, and Decision Makers receive thorough training on all aspects of decision-making.