§ Mr. HinchliffeTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the average waiting period between an application for a war pension appeal and an appeal hearing. [5005]
§ Mr. HealdThis is a matter for Mr. John Sheppard, the acting chief executive of the War Pensions Agency. He will write to the hon. Member.
Letter from John Sheppard to Mr. David Hinchliffe, dated 13 December 1995:
The Secretary of State for Social Security has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about War Pensions appeals.There are two different types of War Pension appeal. An entitlement appeal can he made against the decision that there is no entitlement to a War Disablement Pension. An assessment appeal may he made where the pensioner awarded a War Disablement Pension disagrees with the assessment of his disability.The War Pensions Agency (WPA) is responsible for preparing the appeal papers for the independent Pension Appeal Tribunals (PAT), who come under the jurisdiction of the Lord Chancellor's Department. The PAT consider all War Pension appeals and are responsible for arranging appeal hearings.795WOnce an appeal has been lodged the WPA looks at all the evidence afresh and is then required to produce a Statement of Case. This is a complex document detailing all the relevant evidence which is sent to the appellant for comment before being submitted to the PAT. The average time taken by WPA to complete this action in 1995/96, is 263 working days for an assessment appeal and 326 days for an entitlement appeal. These average times are longer than would normally be the case and are a reflection of the considerable increase in appeals that occurred in 1994. The WPA has also been phasing in a new computer system and a major restructuring of the organisation this year, but now that these changes are complete, there should be a gradual and sustained improvement in the clearance of appeals.Once the Statement of Case is with the PAT they make the arrangements for the appeal to be heard. They too have been affected by the increase in appeals over the last couple of years. The average time taken since April for the PAT to schedule a hearing following receipt of the Statement of Case from WPA is 42.35 weeks.The PAT has also addressed the problem by increasing the number of courts held each day. These have increased from 4-5 at the end of 1994, to 7-8 now, and the intention is to further increase the number to 10 next April. In addition there has been an increase in the number of cases heard each day by each court.I hope you find my reply helpful.
§ Mr. CousinsTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the total number of war pension appeals outstanding; what was the number of such appeals originally in each year of original claim; and how many were outstanding at(a) 31 December 1994 and (b) 31 December 1993. [5489]
796W
§ Mr. HealdThese are matters for Mr. John Sheppard, the acting chief executive of the War Pensions Agency. He will write to the hon. Member.
Letter from John Sheppard to Mr. Jim Cousins, dated 13 December 1995:
The Secretary of State for Social Security has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about the number of outstanding War Pension appeals.There are two different types of appeal. An entitlement appeal may be lodged where the Agency has been unable to accept that a particular medical condition has been caused by service in the Forces; an assessment appeal can be made where the appellant disagrees with the assessment of disablement arising from an accepted condition.The table below shows the number of appeals outstanding within the Agency on the dates you refer to.
31 December 1993 31 December 1994 30 November 1995 Entitlement 8,857 7,102 6,085 Assessment 6,949 8,263 6,617 Total 15,806 15,365 12,702 I am unable to break down these figures to show the years of the original claims because there are no time limits for making entitlement appeals and different time limits depending on the type of assessment appeal. It does not follow, therefore that the appeals received in any period are related to decision made in any specific earlier period. Indeed, some entitlement appeals are made up to 20 or 30 years after the original decision on the claim.I hope you find this information useful.