Recommendation 4

It is unacceptable how long some PIP claimants are having to wait for their claims to be processed, which can cause them to get into debt and push them into poverty. The Department does not have an adequate plan to improve this in the short term. The Department aims to process 75% of new PIP claims within 75 working days but, in 2024–25, only 51% of claims were processed within this timeframe. We have constituents who have waited a long time for their claims to be processed, in some cases over a year. As it has done previously, the Department pointed to its Health Transformation Programme as the long-term solution to improving the service it provides to PIP claimants. As part of this, the Department is testing in a few postcodes an online application process, which it says has typically reduced the time taken to process claims by 20 days and enabled it to achieve its target. In 2023, the Department told the previous Committee that it intended to process up to 20% of PIP claims using the new online service by 2026. We are concerned, however, that this timetable may not be achieved as the Department now says only that it believes it can reach the 20% target by 2029 when the programme is due to be completed. This is far too long for claimants to have to wait to get a better service. We note that the programme is likely to be used to apply a test and learn approach to the recommendations that come out of the Timms review of PIP, however, the Department should not allow this to result in further delays to improvements. recommendation Alongside its Treasury Minute response, the Department should write to the Committee to provide: • for 2024–25, more detailed data on the time taken to process new PIP claims, specifically a breakdown of the number and proportion of claims processed as follows: ○ within the target of 75 working days; ○ after the 75-day target but within six months; ○ after six months but within 12 months; and ○ after 12 months. The Department should also pro