Mr. John McKeon:

It is a relatively small difference. Therefore, the delay due to the appeal does not impact on me. That is the first point in that the negative reason I might not go down that route is taken away in view of the fact that I will have money in my hands in any event. In terms of why someone might think it worthwhile, this goes back to a point raised by the Comptroller and Auditor General. It is pure speculation, however, and we have not carried out research into it. We were reviewing domiciliary care allowance cases up to 2011 to 2012 and we stopped doing the reviews at that stage because, on review, approximately 40% of clients were found to be ineligible. Subsequently, they would appeal and it somehow got into the ether that an appeal decision is better than a first decision. I think that people in some areas are focusing on the appeal as the real decision point. This does not make sense and we are doing our best with stakeholder groups to get out the message that if they give us the same information at the first play as they do at appeal they will get the same decision. There might be a misconception that an appeal decision is a better than the first decision. It is not. It is a different decision with different information.