Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what guidance her Department issues to Disability Living Allowance claimants during the wait for their claim to be assessed; and what steps she is taking to reduce waiting times.

Disability Living Allowance (DLA) for Children is the only DLA product that has new claims. There are no longer new claims for DLA Adult, as customers over 16 are invited to claim Personal Independence Payment (PIP), and customers over the state pensions age are invited to claim Attendance Allowance (AA), rather than the DLA 65+.

At present, for Disability Living Allowance for Children, once a claim has been registered a system generated letter is sent to the customer to advise that the claim is being looked at with an approximate time frame, a progress acknowledgement letter may be sent at 7 weeks for new claims if the claim has not had a decision at that point.

Special Rules End of Life claims are dealt with as a priority and the above does not apply as these are expected to be decided within 10 days.

Telephony agents are also kept up to date for any telephony enquiries.

In 2025 plans are in place to add information to an automated text once claims are registered. Work is also being undertaken to add a page to gov.uk

In addition to this, new staff have been recruited and staff redeployed to help meet the increased number of claims and work is also underway to deliver improvements to the customer journey.