Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of pension credit applicants were waiting for their application to be processed in the period between (a) 29 July 2024 and 17 November 2024, (b) 1 April 2024 and 28 July 2024 and (c) 1 August 2023 and 19 November 2023.

We have provided outstanding Pension Credit claims at the date nearest to the date requested.

(a) Outstanding PC claims as at end of w/c 11^th November 2024 was 91,200 (including Unregistered and Advanced claims)

(b) Outstanding PC claims as at end of w/c 22^nd July 2024 was 34,600 (including Unregistered and Advanced claims)

(c) Outstanding PC claims as at end of w/c 13th November 2023 was 25,000 (including Unregistered and Advanced claims)

We are deploying around 500 additional staff to manage the increase in volumes.

Please note, the claims outstanding figures do not include Advanced claims. This data is sourced from the Pension Credit system and for internal departmental use only. As such, they have not been quality assured to the same extent as Official Statistics.