Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress has been made on addressing the backlog in applications for personal independence payments; and for what median end-to-end time applicants are currently waiting.

We have implemented a wide range of initiatives across the whole Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claim journey to speed up processes and are continuing to identify further opportunities for improvement. Figures released on 17 June reflect the significant progress made over the past year and show claims for PIP are now being cleared at four times the rate they were in January 2014. These figures can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/personal-independence-payment-april-2013-to-april-2015

The latest statistics show that as at April 2015 a new claimant was waiting on average (median) 11 weeks from the point of registration to a decision being made on their claim (end to end), compared to 41 weeks in July 2014. DLA reassessment claims were taking on average (median) 10 weeks in April 2015.

Updated statistics on PIP registrations, clearances, clearance times and outstanding times (up to July 2015 data) are due to be published and can be found from 16th September at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/personal-independence-payment-statistics