Disability benefit mistakes are overturned every minute of the working day, analysis shows

Work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey has been warned the ‘stressful and degrading’ assessment system is failing people, Andy Gregory reports

Therese Coffey is facing calls to give disabled people the right to request an appropriate benefits assessor (Justin Tallis/AFP via Getty Images)

The number of mistaken disability benefit decisions successfully appealed in the past two years equates to one for every minute of the working day, analysis suggests, prompting a warning that disabled people are being “systematically failed” by the current process.

In the 24 months to July, a total of 301,899 decisions about people’s Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claims were overturned, according to analysis of government data by the disability charity, Scope – which amounts to an average of more than 12,000 per month.

The number of successful appeals has soared by more than 30 per cent over the past five years, analysis shared exclusively with The Independent suggests, amid warnings that these mistaken decisions create “enormous anxiety” for disabled people forced to fight for the correct support, often in the face of poverty.