Department to review some successful social welfare appeals

Of those, 57 were successfully appealed — 20 were revised decisions made by the department and 37 were Appeals Office decisions.

In 70% of the appeals upheld, significant additional information was provided by the appellants, but in the remaining 17 cases (30%), no significant additional information had been provided.

According to the C&AG report: "Because evaluation and judgement is involved, it is inevitable that some differences may arise when deciding on a person’s ability to work, or the level of care needed for a child. 

However, it was not clear in the cases examined why the appeals had been successful when the original claims had not. The department noted that appeals officers consider cases on a de novo basis, rather than determining whether a deciding officer’s decision is or is not correct."

It recommended periodic reviews of such outcomes, and the department agreed.

It said: "Towards this end, the department has recently moved the Decisions Advisory Office to report to the chief appeals officer. The purpose of this change in reporting line is to strengthen the feedback loop from the Appeals Office into the department’s decision-making process to help ensure that deciding officers learn from the determinations of appeals officers. 

The DAO will have access to and will monitor successfully appealed decisions and will arrange for periodic reviews between the appeals officers and relevant scheme areas to take the learnings from these appeal cases."

Last year, just under 26,000 appeal decisions were finalised, an increase of 21% from 2019, with fewer oral hearings being one possible factor.

The department said the total number of decisions on welfare claims made in 2020 was approximately 2m, and that the appeal rate for 2020 was 1.3%.

Over 40% of the appeals received were accounted for by just two income support schemes: disability allowance, which represented over one quarter of appeals; and the carer’s allowance scheme, which accounted for 15% of the total appeals received.

The department also agreed with a C&AG recommendation that written guidelines for appeals officers should be prepared that clearly establish the circumstances that usually result in an oral hearing being held, and that it moves away from a paper-based system.

"The finalisation of the project and the implementation of a new appeals system is a priority for the Appeals Office and for the department," the Department of Social Protection stated. 

"The review carried out in 2017 was a preliminary piece of work which has usefully informed the development and progress of the appeals modernisation project."