Department for Work and Pensions written question – answered at on 8 September 2025.
Nick Timothy
Opposition Assistant Whip (Commons)
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many successful mandatory reconsiderations there have been since 2020, broken down by (a) year, (b) value, and (c) benefit type.
Stephen Timms
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions
Information for Personal Independence Payment and Employment and Support Allowance can be found on Stat Xplore.
Successful Personal Independence Payment (PIP) mandatory reconsiderations (MRs) can be found on the ‘PIP MR Clearances’ dataset. Use the ‘Geography’ and ‘National – Regional – LA – OAs’ filter to select ‘DWP policy ownership’. The ‘MR Decision’ filter can be used to select ‘New Decision – Award Changed’ and the ‘Month’ filter can be used to select the years you are interested in.
For Employment Support Allowance Work Capability Assessment (ESA WCA) successful MRs, use the ‘Mandatory Reconsiderations – Clearances’ dataset. Use the ‘Geography’ and ‘National – Regional – LA – Ward’ filter to select ‘Great Britain’ and then ‘England’ and ‘Wales’. The ‘Decision’ filter can be used to select ‘Revised – allowed’ and the ‘Date of Decision’ filter can be used to select the time period needed.
You can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest user and, if needed, you can access guidance on how to extract the information required.
Universal Credit (UC) MRs can be found in Table 1 below.
Table 1: volume of successful UC MRs by financial year
| 2019_20 | 2020_21 | 2021_22 | 2022_23 | 2023_24 | 2024_25 |
Volume of successful MRs | 50,000 | 47,000 | 61,000 | 100,000 | 107,000 | 110,000 |
Notes:
Information on other benefit MRs as well as their value is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
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