Post by nickd on Apr 5, 2012 14:52:14 GMT 1
There's been a steep rise in the number of benefit appeal tribunals,
to a point where HMCTS have had to take on additional staff & even sit on Saturdays.
Since the Courts & Tribunals Service merged, it's not uncommon for a benefit claimant to find that they end up in court having to fight their case. The authorities are making so many bad decision that they've been labelled 'serial litigants' - in 2010/2011 418,500 appeals were lodged by the Tribunal section of HMCTS. Claimants are winning their cases at a rate of 40% which highlights how often the State gets it wrong.
The Ministry of Justice has been criticised for not keeping a good records of its own financial accounts, this could explain why they are understating the true cost of benefit appeals. It could also cast some doubt over any claim they may make that they have got escalating benefit appeals under control. We are therefore going to challenge the Ministry of Justice on both benefit appeal statistics & the costs associated with thousands of appeals. The inevitable conclusion you have to make is the number of appeals is directly related to government embarking upon a radical and untested programme of welfare reform. The biggest increase has been in Employment & Support Allowance appeals, these have risen by 167% between 2008/2009 and 2010/20110. This is the first wave of hard hitting review of claims made by claimants; thousands more will follow as an ongoing programme of welfare moves on to transitioning thousands of longer term Incapacity Benefit claims as well as reviewing existing Disability Living Allowance claimants; it can only get worse.
What the senior Tribunal judiciary say in official reports which look at the figures to date and make predictions as to how the numbers of appeals will increase in the future:
Annual Intake of SSCS Appeals
2008-09 --- 242,800
2009-10 --- 339,200
2010-11 --- 418,500
(forecast)
2011-12 --- 421,600
2012-13 --- 483,400
2013-14 --- 576,700
2014-15 --- 644,000
Actual figures for 2008-09 to 2010-11 taken from Annual Tribunal Statistics Report for 2010-11 available at
www.justice.gov.uk/publications/statistics-and-data/tribunals/annual-stats.htm
What JD says
What everyone else says
www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/statistics/mojstats/sscs-stats-notice-oct2011.pdf
www.judiciary.gov.uk/publications-and-reports/statistics/judicial-and-court-statistics
The human cost of getting it wrong
The complexity revealed
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8465122.stm
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/01/work-capability-assessment
to a point where HMCTS have had to take on additional staff & even sit on Saturdays.
Since the Courts & Tribunals Service merged, it's not uncommon for a benefit claimant to find that they end up in court having to fight their case. The authorities are making so many bad decision that they've been labelled 'serial litigants' - in 2010/2011 418,500 appeals were lodged by the Tribunal section of HMCTS. Claimants are winning their cases at a rate of 40% which highlights how often the State gets it wrong.
The Ministry of Justice has been criticised for not keeping a good records of its own financial accounts, this could explain why they are understating the true cost of benefit appeals. It could also cast some doubt over any claim they may make that they have got escalating benefit appeals under control. We are therefore going to challenge the Ministry of Justice on both benefit appeal statistics & the costs associated with thousands of appeals. The inevitable conclusion you have to make is the number of appeals is directly related to government embarking upon a radical and untested programme of welfare reform. The biggest increase has been in Employment & Support Allowance appeals, these have risen by 167% between 2008/2009 and 2010/20110. This is the first wave of hard hitting review of claims made by claimants; thousands more will follow as an ongoing programme of welfare moves on to transitioning thousands of longer term Incapacity Benefit claims as well as reviewing existing Disability Living Allowance claimants; it can only get worse.
What the senior Tribunal judiciary say in official reports which look at the figures to date and make predictions as to how the numbers of appeals will increase in the future:
Annual Intake of SSCS Appeals
2008-09 --- 242,800
2009-10 --- 339,200
2010-11 --- 418,500
(forecast)
2011-12 --- 421,600
2012-13 --- 483,400
2013-14 --- 576,700
2014-15 --- 644,000
Actual figures for 2008-09 to 2010-11 taken from Annual Tribunal Statistics Report for 2010-11 available at
www.justice.gov.uk/publications/statistics-and-data/tribunals/annual-stats.htm
What JD says
What everyone else says
www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/statistics/mojstats/sscs-stats-notice-oct2011.pdf
www.judiciary.gov.uk/publications-and-reports/statistics/judicial-and-court-statistics
The human cost of getting it wrong
The complexity revealed
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8465122.stm
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/01/work-capability-assessment