Stephen Timms – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2016-03-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many appeal hearings at the (a) First-tier Tribunal (Social Security and Child Support) and (b) Upper Tribunal (Administrative Chamber) his Department did not send a representative to in (i) 2012-13, (ii) 2013-14 and (iii) 2014-15.

Justin Tomlinson

The department’s policy has been to focus its resources on sending Presenting Officers to the more complex benefit cases and when directed by the tribunal therefore the department sent a representative to all Upper Tribunal appeal hearings notified to them in the three years 2012-13; 2013-14 and 2014-15.

For the First-Tier Tribunal, POs did not attend as follows:

2012/13 238,210 (of 252,992 hearings)

2013/14 293,713 (of 308,502 hearings)

2014/15 78,301 (of 89,689 hearings)