Page 88 - Reforming Benefits Decision-Making

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appeal would lapse and a fresh appeal would be required. CPAG has argued
that it is unlawful for DWP to withdraw the revised decision because the
claimant has indicated that they will appeal the amount awarded. In its view it
will be almost always in the claimant’s best interests for the decision to be
revised, even if the claimant goes on to appeal the revised decision. Whilst it
would cause some additional delay, in the meantime the claimant would at
least be paid the arrears flowing from the revision and therefore get some of
the additional benefit whilst appealing.

3.28 Our recommendation above to require the DWP/DfC to conduct a review
once an appeal has been lodged will formalise this revision process and ensure
that where the DWP is willing to revise its decision, this revision is made,
rather than “offered”. In circumstances where the revised decision gave the
claimant some, but not all, of what they were requesting, the appeal should
not lapse and the claimant should be able to continue the appeal against the
revised decision. There should also be a specified time for the appellant to
decide whether to continue the appeal, which would allow sufficient time for
the appellant to seek advice The decision letter should signpost appellants to
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where they can obtain advice.
3.29 We recognise that this will result in an increased workload for the Tribunal, at
least at the initial stage, as it can be expected that a similar volume of
claimants who currently request mandatory reconsideration would seek to
appeal. However, in our view, currently many claimants who would be
successful on appeal are not appealing. The very purpose of this
recommendation is to increase the number of claimants who appeal, to ensure
that that they receive the benefits that they are entitled to. Although the
Tribunal will have to determine the validity of appeals before the DWP
reviews the decision, we also expect that a significant number of appeals will
not progress to a hearing as they will lapse following the DWP review.
Greater use of tribunal caseworkers and digital technologies may also
alleviate some of the additional work. Further, if the recommendations in
Chapter 2 are implemented, we would hope to see improvements in first

242 DWP, ADM A1 (see n. 78 above) at A5159 to A5161
243 See further Chapter 3.

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