Personal Independence Payment
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of trends in the level of waiting times for Personal Independence Payment review decisions; and what steps he is taking to reduce delays for claimants in the Filton and Bradley Stoke constituency.
Answered by Department for Work and Pensions
The information is in the table.
Table 1: Clearance times (weeks) for PIP award reviews
Clearance financial year | Mean | Median |
2014/15 | 22 | 20 |
2015/16 | 15 | 13 |
2016/17 | 13 | 12 |
2017/18 | 16 | 16 |
2018/19 | 21 | 21 |
2019/20 | 18 | 18 |
2020/21 | 20 | 18 |
2021/22 | 18 | 14 |
2022/23 | 27 | 19 |
2023/24 | 40 | 45 |
2024/25 | 39 | 43 |
2025/26 | 25 | 20 |
Notes:
- Clearance times refer to the time between a review is registered to when it’s cleared.
- Includes normal rules claims under DWP policy ownership (England, Wales, and abroad).
All claims remain in payment whilst award reviews are in progress and award increases identified during a planned review will be backdated as appropriate. Should customers report a change of circumstance and trigger an unplanned review, their claim will be prioritised alongside new claims.
We are committed to ensuring people can access financial support through Personal BIndependence Payment (PIP) in a timely manner. Reducing customer journey times for PIP claimants is a priority for the Department and we are working constantly to make improvements to our service, which is kept under constant review.
We always aim to make an award review decision as quickly as possible, taking into account the need to assess all available evidence, including that from the claimant. Most award review decisions are now made without the need for an assessment by a Healthcare Professional, where we have sufficient information, which helps to reduce the time taken to process many cases.
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