Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reason eligible pensioners who have experienced delays in receiving their State Pension invitation do not have the option to apply for their pension via an online form or via a form that can be downloaded and printed from the Government website.

Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)

If a customer’s State Pension age is pre 6th April 2016 they can download a BR1 claim form from Gov.uk.

For customers whose State Pension Age is after 6th April 2016 they can use the online ‘Get Your State Pension’ (GySP) digital service to complete their claim. Customers who do not receive an invitation to claim their State Pension can use the online service to request a claim invitation to be sent to them. A claim invitation code can be used for up to 15 months from being issued.

If a customer does not wish to use the online service and requires a clerical claim form to complete, this can be obtained by contacting the new claims telephony line. Additionally, claims can be made by telephone where the claim may be gathered and processed while the customer is on the phone. If the customer requires an accessible version of the form that can also be provided on request.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average length of time in days is for her Department to process new State Pension claims received online.

Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General

DWP holds the average clearance times for State Pension claims as a whole. However, we do not retain separate data for claims received online (via the Get Your State Pension portal). Therefore, this information is only available at disproportionate cost to The Department for Work & Pensions as the Department does not have a business requirement for this information to be retained.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average length of time in days was for her Department to process new State Pension claims received by letter in the latest period for which data is available.

Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General

DWP holds the average clearance times for State Pension claims as a whole. However, we do not retain separate data for claims received by letter (BR1 claim form). Therefore, this information is only available at disproportionate cost to The Department for Work & Pensions as the Department does not have a business requirement for this information to be retained.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to support people who have experienced delays in processing new State Pension claims.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

We provide support to our customers by communicating at the following stages to keep them fully informed during the claim process: -

• when their State Pension claim is received – this includes online claims via Get Your State

Pension

• inviting the customer to contact us if we need some additional information
• we are working on their claim and they do not need to contact us
• we have processed their claim and we will send a letter to confirm payment