• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / Benefits and Poverty / PIP phone waiting-times even higher than previously thought, DWP admits
DWP entrance at Caxton House, Westminster

PIP phone waiting-times even higher than previously thought, DWP admits

By John Pring on 22nd June 2023 Category: Benefits and Poverty

Listen

Waiting-times faced by disabled people trying to use a benefit enquiry line are even higher than previously thought, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has admitted.

Disability News Service (DNS) revealed last week that the “average speed of answer” for the personal independence payment (PIP) telephone enquiry line reached 38 minutes and 50 seconds in April.

It had risen from 23 minutes in January, to 31 minutes in February, and 37 minutes in March.

The figures were provided in response to a DNS freedom of information request.

But when Tom Pursglove, the minister for disabled people, was asked for these figures by Labour’s Jon Trickett, the figures he provided on 16 June were even higher.

They show that the waiting-times rose from 25 minutes in January, to nearly 35 minutes in February, 40 minutes in March, and as high as 44 minutes in April, before falling in May to nearly 41 minutes.

These are just average waiting-times, with many disabled people reporting far higher waits before they can speak to someone, while the Benefits and Work website has revealed that nearly half a million callers to the PIP helpline in April were deliberately disconnected by DWP before they could even join the queue to speak to an adviser.

The number of disconnections rose from 34,860 in February, to 306,865 in March and 494,044 in April.

Benefits and Work reported that the number of blocked calls in April was even greater than the number allowed to join the queue (388,265).

DWP told DNS this week that the waiting-times provided to Trickett were higher than those given to DNS because they did not include figures for the PIP mandatory reconsideration enquiry line.

Pursglove told Trickett that PIP had “experienced unprecedented levels of new claims from customers in recent months and, as a result, we have seen increased call traffic”.

He said: “We are currently in the process of recruiting additional resource into telephony, so that we can increase the number of calls answered and reduce current wait times.”

DWP’s figures show the rise in new PIP claims – under the normal rules procedure – in February, March and April 2023, compared with the same months in 2022, was just 8.4 per cent.

 

A note from the editor:

Please consider making a voluntary financial contribution to support the work of DNS and allow it to continue producing independent, carefully-researched news stories that focus on the lives and rights of disabled people and their user-led organisations.

Please do not contribute if you cannot afford to do so, and please note that DNS is not a charity. It is run and owned by disabled journalist John Pring and has been from its launch in April 2009.

Thank you for anything you can do to support the work of DNS…

Share this post:

Share on X (Twitter)Share on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on Reddit

Tags: Benefits and Work DWP foi Jon Trickett PIP Tom Pursglove

Pygmalion at the Old Vic. Access performances. Icons for audio description, captioned, BSL and relaxed performances.

Related

Anger at ‘shameful’ failure to include DWP deaths inquiry in Labour policy document
21st September 2023
One in three ‘Disability Confident’ employers have employed no disabled people
21st September 2023
Minister misleads MPs over plans to remove ‘fitness for work’ safety net
7th September 2023

Primary Sidebar

Pygmalion at the Old Vic. Access performances. Icons for audio description, captioned, BSL and relaxed performances.Pygmalion at the Old Vic. Access performances. Icons for audio description, captioned, BSL and relaxed performances.

Access

Latest Stories

Network Rail admits: ‘We have no idea how many inaccessible bridges we’re building’

Anger as Labour omits ‘vital’ promise on disability rights from policy document

Labour has ‘caved in to vested interests’ on social care, leaked documents show

Fear over council policy that could force disabled people into care homes

Anger at ‘shameful’ failure to include DWP deaths inquiry in Labour policy document

One in three ‘Disability Confident’ employers have employed no disabled people

Austerity changes are reducing impact of accessible housing funds, 12 years on

Ministers ignore ESA claimants in suicide prevention strategy… again

Watchdog appears set to approve mass ticket office closures

Disabled politician sues Lib Dems over discrimination that left her suicidal

Advice and Information

Readspeaker

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2023 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web