Mr. John McKeon:

I will ask the chief appeals officer to speak in a moment. The Chair made reference to the statistics with regard to appeals and a reduction in positive outcomes for appeals related to disability. It is important to note that one should not necessarily look at the numbers at the first level. One of the reasons for this reduction has nothing at all to do with whether appeals are heard orally or conducted in writing. If you look at the number of appeals made in respect of illness and disability schemes in 2021 and 2022 in comparison with 2019, you will see there has been a significant reduction in the number of appeals. The number of those claims that are appealed has reduced from approximately 6% to just under 3%. One of the reasons for this is that the Department has done a lot of work with disability advocacy groups to improve our forms. We completely redesigned the forms in areas such as domiciliary care allowance, carer's payments and disability payments. We also provide a lot more information in the claim decision. These measures have resulted in more claims being granted on the first decision that would previously have been rejected. As a consequence, the number of appeals has reduced. As a result of better quality decisions being made, one would expect that the percentage of successful appeals would reduce. That reduction is not being driven by the nature of the appeal or how appeals are processed but by the way in which decisions are now being taken. That has been the most significant impact. That is worthy of note. I will ask the chief appeals officer to comment on the issue of oral hearings.