Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent estimate her Department has made of the average waiting time to process personal independence payment applications in (a) England, (b) the North East of England and (c) Newcastle upon Tyne East constituency.

This question was answered on 9th September 2021

Average waiting times for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) new claims made under normal rules (i.e. excluding those processed under special rules) are calculated as the median number of weeks from registration to DWP decision, and published as the “Average Actual Clearance Time”. For claims cleared in April 2021, the latest published data shows:

(a) The Average Actual Clearance Time for new claims in England was 19 weeks.

(b) The Average Actual Clearance Time for new claims in the North East of England was 19 weeks.

(c) The Average Actual Clearance Time for new claims in Newcastle upon Tyne East was 22 weeks.

We are currently operating within expected levels. Average clearance times from initial claim to a decision being made for new claims at the end of April 2021 is 19 weeks, which is the same as average clearance times achieved in March 2020, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. We are committed to ensuring that people can access financial support through PIP in a timely manner. We always aim to make an award decision as quickly as possible, taking into account the need to review all available evidence.

Data on clearance times for PIP claims is published in the PIP Official Statistics tables, which can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/personal-independence-payment-statistics-to-april-2021

(Clearance times for (b) the North East of England are published in Table 2A (v)).

Data to 31^st July 2021 will be published on 14^th September 2021, as part of the next scheduled release of PIP Official Statistics.

Notes:

Data Source: PIP Atomic Data Store (ADS)

• Data for England and Newcastle upon Tyne East is unpublished. It should be used with caution as there is likely to be more variability in clearance times at small geographical levels. It may be subject to future revision.
• The status of claims as 'normal rules' and 'new claim' is shown as at the point of the DWP decision, in accordance with the measure. It is possible for claims to transition between normal and special rules, and between new claims and reassessments, during the course of the claimant journey.
• Clearance time measures do not include claims that were withdrawn by the claimant or claims that were disallowed by DWP prior to referral to the Assessment Providers (e.g. for failure to meet basic eligibility criteria).
• The median time is the middle value if you were to order all the times within the distribution from lowest value to highest value. The median is presented here instead of the mean because the mean can be unduly affected by outlying cases (e.g. cases where the person has been hard to reach due to being in prison, hospital, failed to attend the assessment on numerous occasions etc.).