DWP tells inquiry its PIP clearance times have “not exceeded” 16 weeks, just as they hit 20

The Labour government has told a parliamentary inquiry that clearance time for new personal independence payment (PIP) claims has not “exceeded” 16 weeks in more than three years, just as new departmental data has shown waits reach 20 weeks.

It made the claims in its official response to a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report.

In January, the committee had published its follow-up to a number of inquiries into various aspects of service operations at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

Amid its scrutiny over a series of the department’s failures, this had highlighted the “unacceptable” process times for new PIP claims.

In particular, it noted that: “It is unacceptable how long some PIP claimants are having to wait for their claims to be processed, which can cause them to get into debt and push them into poverty.”

The report also added that the DWP “does not have an adequate plan to improve this in the short term.”

On 1 April, the PAC published the government’s response.

In a document dated March 2026, the government replied that: “The current average (median) duration for a Personal Independence Payment (PIP) New Claims stands at 16 weeks (October 2025), having not exceeded this level during any month since September 2022 and representing substantial improvement from a high of 26 weeks during August 2021.”

But new data the department published on 17 March showed that clearance times surged past this at the start of 2026.

The latest statistics show that this hit 20 weeks in January this year (2026).

In other words, the department was failing to clear 50% of claims in January in under 20 weeks (over 4.5 months).

Assessment providers processing applications make up the bulk of this, at 15 weeks from referral to the final DWP decision.

This compared to 16 weeks for the total clearance journey in January 2025, 11 weeks of which was down to assessment providers.

As such, assessment providers taking longer to process decisions appears to be the primary reason for the increase.

And while the government was citing maintaining its 16-week clearance streak, this still exceeds the department’s own targets.

The DWP aims to clear 75% of new claims within 75 working days.

This would approximately equate to a 15-week wait for a decision on PIP.

But new data the DWP published on 26 March – at the request of the committee – showed that it’s far from meeting this target.

The PAC report in January noted how the DWP was clearing just 51% of new PIP claims within 75 working days in 2024/25.

The committee requested the department provide a more granular breakdown of the timescales for processing new claims for the 2024/25 financial year.

This has now revealed how 37.5% (287,000) PIP claims it processed took between 75 working days (nearly two and half months) and half a year.

The DWP cleared a further 11% after 6 months (84,300), but in under a year.

While it took the department more than a year to clear less than 1% of new claims, this still meant 4,600 people had waited this long for a decision.

In its response to the PAC report, the government also appeared to dismiss the detrimental impact these lengthy clearance times are having on disabled people.

Skirting the PAC’s point about debt and poverty, the government simply told the inquiry that “PIP is not an income replacement benefit, as immediate support for people on low incomes with their living costs is available through Universal Credit. Successful PIP claims are backdated to the date of application.”

It seems to have been referring to the fact that PIP is a non-means tested benefit – meaning that disabled people’s incomes do not affect their eligibility for it.

However, the disability benefit is meant to help level the playing field for disabled people, who face additional costs to meet the same standard of living as their non-disabled peers.

A 2022 report the previous Conservative government sat on for over two years and that Disability News Service (DNS) obtained via Freedom of Information request revealed how claimants would primarily spend their PIP on “daily living, utilities, household costs and transport”.

Some planned to use their payments to afford aids, adaptations, therapy or private treatments.

But crucially, as DNS previously reported, the report stated that: “Most individuals cited financial support as the driving purpose of PIP, with bills and basic survival mentioned prominently.”

The government also made its point just as it has halved the health element of universal credit – that so-called “income replacement benefit” – for new claimants.

Disabled people on low incomes that the department has assessed are unable to work will now get just £217.26 a month for universal credit’s limited capability for work-related activity (LCWRA).

And it’s a loss that the DWP’s co-move to increase the standard rate will entirely fail to offset.

All told, a single disabled claimant over the age of 25 who’s medically unable to work will lose out on £2253.36 a year.

The government therefore made no acknowledgement of the dual impact of its universal credit cuts and the continued long clearance times for disabled people making new claims to both benefits.

Yet data has consistently shown that disabled people are more likely to live in poverty.

The relative poverty rate for disabled households currently stands at 26 per cent compared to 18 per cent for non-disabled households.

Disability News Service (DNS) contacted the DWP for comment on its failure to provide the PAC with the up-to-date figures showing the 20 week clearance times for January.

Initially, it refused to go on record explaining why it hadn’t used these in its response to the PAC.

After the deadline for comment, a DWP spokesperson came back to the DNS, stating: “We published our response on 5th March, within standard timeframes, using the latest available PIP statistics.”

*The data shows households in relative poverty – who are those earning less than 60 per cent of the median household income in 2024/25 – excluding income from DLA, PIP, and AA.