Every year the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) makes 12 million decisions on social security benefits. As the Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC) notes in a recent report, with such volumes it’s not surprising if mistakes are made. Only a small proportion of these decisions are challenged by claimants, but the processes for review … Continue reading
By Robert Thomas Readers of this blog will be well-aware of mandatory reconsideration (MR) and the discussion surrounding it. More than half a million MR decisions have been made since the introduction of MR in 2013, making this one of the largest areas of administrative decision-making. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) recently published … Continue reading
Mandatory reconsideration is something of a hybrid feature of administrative justice. In terms of design, this is obvious. It is a form of redress in one sense, but it is also a form of primary decision-making in another. By Robert Thomas and Joseph Tomlinson, School of Law, University of Manchester We recently held a joint UKAJI/University … Continue reading
Robert Thomas, School of Law, University of Manchester This blog post investigates the number of appeals allowed by tribunals and the reasons for this. How many appeals are allowed by tribunals? And why do tribunals allow appeals? To start with, here is some data. Figure 1 shows the proportion of allowed appeals concerning social … Continue reading
‘A benefit sanction – ie withdrawal of benefit or a reduction in the amount of benefit paid for a certain period – may be imposed if a claimant is deemed not to have complied with a condition for receiving the benefit in question. Benefit sanctions are not a new feature of the social security system, … Continue reading