Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of residents of Ceredigion in Wales are currently in receipt of disability benefits.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The table below shows the number of claimants in February 2024 who are on the different disability benefits, Personal Independence Payment (PIP), Disability Living Allowance, including the Child element (DLA) and Attendance Allowance (AA).

This information can be found on the published datasets on Stat-Xplore - Log in (dwp.gov.uk)

The latest available population estimates published by the Office of National Statistics on Population estimates - local authority based by single year of age - Nomis - Official Census and Labour Market Statistics (nomisweb.co.uk) show that the estimated population of Ceredigion in April 2023 is 73,050.

This means that 12% of the residents of Ceredigion in Wales were claiming disability benefits in February 2024.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the length of time to undertake a PIP review.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

We continue to prioritise new claims to PIP to ensure claims are put into payment as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, this means many customers are waiting longer than expected for their review to be undertaken.

We have been actively recruiting additional Case Managers to meet increased demand for PIP, which means we are now in a position to begin to deploy additional resource onto award reviews. This will increase the number of review cases we can complete ‘in house’.

We have just moved to a new contract for the delivery of health assessments and our new suppliers will be taking steps to ensure they have sufficient capacity to deliver the required volume of assessments. However, this may take time and there is an extensive training period for new Healthcare Professionals to ensure quality standards are maintained.

We have introduced processes to increase efficiency and move cases through the system more quickly:

• Where sufficient evidence/information is available, Case Managers can make decisions on reviews, avoiding the need for a functional assessment, which means many customers receive a decision faster.
• Healthcare Professionals now complete most assessments by telephone, which means the vast majority of customers who need an assessment do not need to attend a face-to-face appointment at an Assessment Centre.
• We’ve introduced a change for customers with the most severe conditions, on the highest level of support, who now receive an ongoing PIP award which is only subject to a light touch review every 10 years. .

For customers waiting for a review, we keep them regularly updated using SMS text messages. We also ensure all PIP customers awaiting a review remain in payment, extending awards for up to 12 months where necessary, notifying customers in writing to allay concerns.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of claimants for Personal Independence Payments were (a) initially turned down and (b) successful on appeal in Aldershot constituency in the latest period for which data is available.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

In Aldershot in the Financial Year 2022/23, 450 people who had registered to claim PIP were disallowed after assessment, this is 51% of all initial decisions. Of these, 40 claims were subsequently awarded PIP following an appeal, this is 5% of all initial decisions in the Financial Year 2022/23.

Note:

• Figures are rounded to the nearest 10.
• Percentages have been rounded to the nearest percent.
• This data is unpublished data. It should be used with caution and it may be subject to future revision.
• These figures include appeal outcomes up to March 2024, the latest date for which published data is available. Note that more appeals could be made and completed after March 2024, so numbers may change as it can take some time for an appeal to be lodged and then cleared after the initial decision.
• Figure provided for the number of applicants first awarded PIP at appeal stage include claims that were awarded via a lapsed appeal after a disallowed initial decision and no change to award at MR.

o A lapsed appeal is where DWP changed the decision in the customer’s favour after an appeal was lodged but before it was heard at a tribunal hearing.

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