Ms Joan Gordon:

That means that when the appeals officer has made a determination, the decision will issue within 15 working days. I would love if we could have all appeals addressed within 15 working days but, unfortunately, that will not happen. Generally, the appeal processing times improved in 2020 and 2021 compared with previous years, but there has been a slight deterioration in processing times to date in 2022 when compared with 2021. The processing time for all appeals at the end of September was 15 weeks and the equivalent for 2021 was 12.9 weeks. It is 25.4 weeks for oral hearings and it exceeded 25 weeks also in 2021. For summary decisions, it was 15 weeks, while the equivalent in 2021 was 13.9 weeks.