Page 76 - Reforming Benefits Decision-Making -(updated - August 2021)

rich source of feedback for the DWP. The summary of reasons was added to
decision notices in 2013 with the express aim of enabling the DWP to assess
areas that may require further improvement. For appeals relating to PIP
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assessments or WCAs the decision notice will state the points awarded by the
Tribunal and for which activities and descriptors. As the DWP has access to
the details of each case including the points awarded, and who carried out the
assessment, this therefore provides a variety of potential data points. For
example, it should be possible to identify particular activities that are more
likely to be awarded higher points on appeal, whether claimants with
particular health conditions are more likely to be successful on appeal and
whether particular assessment providers or assessors are being successfully
appealed more frequently than others.

2.106 We appreciate that doing this would involve an investment of time and
resources by the DWP. However, in our view, it is vital to improve first
instance decision-making and the resulting improvements will, in the long
run, lead to significant savings in mandatory reconsideration and appeals
costs. Further, the DWP does already collate statistics on the primary reason
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that PIP appeals are successful. If it can be done for PIP appeals, it is
unclear why it cannot be done in respect of others. Given the level of
spending on automation by the DWP it is perhaps surprising that a way cannot
be found to automatically extract and analyse the relevant information from
decision notices. It may be that HMCTS could facilitate this, for example by
providing decision notices in a searchable format. In addition, the DWP
sometimes sends Presenting Officers to the hearing, who should report back
on the evidence given and the reasons for the decision.

2.107 Given the valuable feedback that can be gleaned from tribunal decision
notices and the volume of successful appeals, we recommend that the DWP
urgently analyses tribunal decision notices and collects data on the
reason(s) for all successful appeals in order to identify recurring issues

208 DWP, Mandatory consideration of revision before appeal: Government response to public
consultation (2012) p. 6.
209 DWP, ‘Response to Freedom of Information Request FOI2019/12127’ (see n. 84 above)

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