Pension Credit Applications and Awards: February 2025

Torsten Bell Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2025 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Torsten Bell)]

The latest statistical release on pension credit applications and awards was published today. It includes data on the number of weekly pension credit applications received and cleared, as well as data on claims awarded and not awarded between 3 April 2023 and 23 February 2025.

Since this Government made the difficult but—given the challenging public finances—right decision to target winter fuel payments, we have been absolutely focused on maximising take-up of pension credit. The Government are forecast to spend £174.8 billion on benefits for pensioners in Great Britain in 2025-26. This includes spending on the state pension, which is forecast to be £146.6 billion in 2025-26. Crucially, our commitment to the triple lock for the entirety of this Parliament means that spending on people’s state pensions is forecast to rise by over £31 billion.

We want to ensure that all pensioners get the support to which they are rightly entitled. That is why we took immediate action on pension credit and have been running the biggest ever pension credit take-up campaign, which has included adverts on television, radio, social media such as Facebook and Instagram, on YouTube, on advertising screens, including on GP and post office screens, as well as in the press. To promote pension credit through as many channels as possible, we have also engaged with key stakeholders and partners, including other Government Departments, local councils, housing associations, community groups, local libraries and service providers, as well as charities and third-sector organisations.

The new figures published today show that for the year to date 2024-25, the Department for Work and Pensions has received 300,000 pension credit applications. This represents the highest number of annual recorded pension credit applications seen by DWP since comparisons began.

Since 29 July 2024 when the winter fuel payment announcement was made:

DWP has received 235,000 pension credit claims—an 81% increase or 105,100 extra applications on the comparable period in 2023-24;

DWP has cleared 232,200 pension credit claims—a 92% increase or 111,100 extra clearances on the comparable period in 2023-24; and

of the claims which DWP has cleared, 117,800 have resulted in an award of pension credit—a 64% increase or 45,800 extra awards on the comparable period 2023-24.

It is important to recognise the volume of applications which the Department received during this period. We understand that pensioners expect their applications to be processed quickly and accurately, which is why we deployed over 500 extra staff to process this huge increase in claims. The latest statistics also show that outstanding claims have reduced from 85,500 in mid-December to just 33,700 by 23 February.

Finally, although around 1.4 million pensioners currently receive pension credit, too many are missing out. We must do more to ensure that pensioners receive all the help they are entitled to. Building on the success of our campaign, we are now exploring other options to drive up claims by:

Writing to all pensioners who make a new claim for housing benefit and who appear to be entitled to pension credit—directly targeting this group to make a claim;

In the longer term, the Government are committed to bringing together the administration of pension credit and housing benefit, so that pensioner households receiving housing benefit also receive any pension credit that they are entitled to;

Undertaking new research on the triggers and motivations that encourage people to apply for pension credit—learning from pensioners’ experiences, we want to build the evidence of what works to boost take-up; and

Working across Departments including His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to use data more effectively to help identify pensioner households most likely to be eligible for pension credit, and to target them directly.

[HCWS478]