The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) appeal process


The DWP appeal process for the benefits it administers (welfare, pensions and child maintenance policy) is as follows:


Mandatory reconsideration: When a person receives a decision from the DWP that they dispute, they must request that the department conducts a mandatory reconsideration before they are allowed to lodge an appeal. They must do this within a month of the decision.


Direct lodgement: People who want to appeal after mandatory reconsideration must send their appeal directly to HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS). 


Time limits: The DWP has 28 calendar days to provide an appeal response. 


For most benefit appeals, you must fill in form SSCS1 which can be found on the government’s website (GOV.UK).


In August 2017, the Upper Tribunal ruled in R (CJ) and SG v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2017] UKUT 0324 (AAC) (03 August 2017), that the DWP had been unlawfully preventing people appealing against decisions to refuse them benefits. The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) brought the test case. 


The group said that the DWP has consistently asserted that where it decides a mandatory reconsideration application has been made too late, no right of appeal arises. The effect has been to exclude large numbers of benefit claimants from access to the justice system and the tribunal said that this had resulted in “a significant number of claimants who are entitled to benefits not being paid them”.


The Upper Tribunal said that the correct position is that where a claimant makes a mandatory reconsideration request at any time within 13 months of the original decision, they will, if dissatisfied, be entitled to take a challenge to a tribunal.


The government had argued that there was no need to have access to the tribunal because its decisions on late mandatory reconsideration requests could be challenged by judicial review. However, out of 1,544,805 mandatory reconsideration decisions made by the government between 2013 and 2017, there had not been a single example of a claimant managing to bring a judicial review challenge of the kind the government suggested was a reasonable alternative to using a tribunal, CPAG reported.


“This decision ensures that even if the DWP thinks there is no good reason for their delay, it cannot prevent such individuals pursuing an appeal before an independent tribunal,” said CPAG legal officer Carla Clarke. “To have found otherwise would have been to uphold a system where the decision maker also acts as arbiter of whether an individual could challenge their decision or not — a clear conflict of interest and an affront to justice.”