Benefit appeals ranked by how often a tribunal hearing changed the decision
The Ministry of Justice publishes, every quarter, how many benefit appeals were heard and what the tribunal did with the decision under appeal. This orders the benefits by the published share of hearings where the original decision was revised in the claimant's favour. It describes cases that were already decided. It is not a forecast for anyone's case and it is not advice to appeal.
Quarter: April to June 2026 (Q1 2026/27), published 2026-09-10 and read on 2026-09-11. These figures are marked provisional by the publisher. The next quarterly edition, covering July to September 2026, is due in December 2026.
| # | Benefit | Cleared at a hearing | Decision revised in favour | Decision upheld | Share revised in favour | Mean wait to clearance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | All benefit types | 20,242 | 12,131 | 8,017 | 60 per cent | 37 weeks |
| 1 | Personal Independence Payment | 13,123 | 8,781 | 4,302 | 67 per cent | 36 weeks |
| 2 | Disability Living Allowance | 1,215 | 719 | 492 | 59 per cent | Not published separately |
| 3 | Child Support | 728 | 415 | 295 | 57 per cent | Not published separately |
| 4 | Employment and Support Allowance | 497 | 227 | 268 | 46 per cent | 29 weeks |
| 5 | Universal Credit | 3,952 | 1,796 | 2,139 | 45 per cent | 35 weeks |
| 6 | Attendance Allowance | 157 | 51 | 106 | 32 per cent | Not published separately |
| 7 | Housing Benefit and Council Tax | 151 | 46 | 98 | 30 per cent | Not published separately |
What the publisher records about these figures
- The share revised in favour counts only disposals cleared at a hearing. Cases withdrawn before a hearing, struck out or decided without a hearing are not in that percentage.
- Cases cleared at a hearing include some withdrawn at the hearing, so the upheld and in favour percentages do not always sum to 100.
- Figures for this quarter are marked provisional and are subject to revision in later publications.
- Disposal figures were revised to include Integrated List Assist disposals from the Cardiff region, applied back to April 2023, so they are higher than figures published previously.
- The publication changed how withdrawn and struck out cases are classified, with data revised back to April 2023, so hearing and non-hearing volumes are not comparable across that change.
- Adult Disability Payment in Scotland is devolved and is not in these figures.
- Disability Living Allowance, Attendance Allowance, Child Support and Housing Benefit and Council Tax have no separate published waiting time. They sit inside the grouped all other benefit types row: a mean of 44 weeks, with half cleared inside 37 weeks.
How this list is built
One row per benefit type published in table SSCS_3, ordered by the percentage of disposals cleared at a hearing where the original decision was revised in favour of the claimant, highest first. Only benefit types with at least 100 disposals cleared at a hearing in the quarter are ordered, because a percentage of a handful of cases is noise. Counts and percentages are the publication's own figures for the quarter named on the page, copied from tables SSCS_2 and SSCS_3, with waiting times from table T_3. Nothing is recalculated and nothing is estimated. The percentage counts only cases cleared at a hearing: cases withdrawn, struck out or decided without a hearing are outside it, and cases cleared at a hearing include some withdrawn on the day.
Source: Tribunal Statistics Quarterly: April to June 2026, Ministry of Justice
Contains public sector information from the Ministry of Justice and HM Courts and Tribunals Service, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Our compilation and ordering are published under CC BY 4.0.
Attribution: Finally Seen, Benefits ranked by how often a tribunal hearing changed the decision, https://finallyseen.org.uk/tribunal-outcomes. Reuse permitted with attribution.
Reuse this list
The same rows are published as files you can check and cite, with the source and the release date inside them.
What this table cannot tell you
- It cannot tell you what a tribunal would do with your case. A share of past hearings is not a probability for a future one, and no page here will give you a number for your own appeal.
- It is not encouragement either way. Whether to appeal, and whether the months of waiting are worth it, is a decision only the person appealing can make.
- The counts are cases, not people, and one appeal can appear more than once if a decision is set aside and reheard.
What an appeal costs in time
Before reading anything into the table above: in the same quarter, appeals at this tribunal took a mean of 37 weeks from receipt to clearance, with half cleared inside 30 weeks or less and a quarter still open beyond 57 weeks. A year earlier the mean was 34 weeks. Most people describe the wait, the paperwork and the hearing itself as the hardest part, regardless of how it ends. The waiting times page carries the published figures benefit by benefit.
See how long benefit appeals are taking