Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 20
20
Acknowledged
Significant delays in PIP claims cause debt and poverty, requiring urgent departmental attention.
Conclusion
We noted examples of constituents who had waited over a year for their PIP claims to be processed, and that the Department had told a Member’s office that claims would take more than 12 months.28 These delays can cause claimants to get into debt and push them into poverty.29 The Department told us that the experiences we described were not showing in its statistics but acknowledged that it was obviously a genuine situation that it needed to address.30
Government Response Summary
The department has reviewed its timeliness standards, which reflect current policy and drive correct outcomes and will include this in the 2025-26 ARA. The department will however write to the Committee to provide the information available as requested, by the end of March 2026, to close this recommendation.
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
4.2 The current average (median) duration for a Personal Independence Payment (PIP) New Claims stands at 16 weeks (October 2025) having not exceeded this level during any month since September 2022 and representing substantial improvement from a high of 26 19 weeks during August 2021. Further improvements in the longer-term will be delivered by the Health Transformation Programme. 4.3 The department is also providing opportunities to reduce journey times through service improvements. For example, offering over 90% of customers facility to submit claims digitally after calling to register claims, reducing delays such as postage time. 4.4 Recognising the Committee’s interest in tracking improvements, and as published within the 2024-25 Annual Report and Accounts (ARA), the department has reviewed its timeliness standards, which reflect current policy and drive correct outcomes. This will be included in the 2025-26 ARA. The department is standardising its measures across service lines to 90% of cases cleared format. The department will however write to the Committee to provide the information available as requested, by the end of March 2026, to close this recommendation. 4.5 In addition to modernising the department’s services and improving baseline performance, an additional 200 staff have been deployed in the past year. This increased capacity has enabled 416,000 planned Award Reviews to be processed between April and October 2025, an increase of 162,000 compared to the previous year, reducing delays for changes of entitlement during planned reviews. 4.6 PIP is not an income replacement benefit, as immediate support for people on low incomes with their living costs is available through Universal Credit. Successful PIP claims are backdated to the date of application.