Mr. John McKeon:

What I was referring to in respect of the information was that we have done a great deal of work within the Department with advocates for people with disabilities, carers and so on to redesign a lot of our application forms and change the information that is provided with the application forms, and that was done in response to representations those advocacy groups made and that were made at meetings of the previous iteration of this committee. All that has happened in recent years and we are seeing the consequences whereby the number of appeals that are coming from disability and caring schemes is still higher than the number that applies to, say, jobseekers' payments but it has reduced. It is too early to say whether there is a cause and effect, but there is certainly an association between, on the one hand, the time when we introduced the new forms and the additional information and, on the other hand, an improvement in the quality of the claims received and of the decisions taken.

Appeals officers, under the current regulations, are required to give a reason when they do not award an appeal but are not required to do so when they award one. From a departmental perspective, I am keen to get a reason for when appeals officers award an appeal because that will educate the Department on what we are getting wrong at deciding officer stage. If an appeals officer were to explain to us the reason he or she granted an appeal, that would be useful. We do get that feedback through the chief appeals officer, but if it were brought down to the level of each decision, that would help.

Ms Gordon might answer the other question.