MPs on the Public Accounts Committee said some benefit claimants have been left waiting over a year for their Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claims to be processed
00:01, 09 Jan 2026Updated 08:33, 09 Jan 2026
Benefit claimants risk being pushed into poverty by unacceptable government delays, a committee of MPs have warned.
The Public Accounts Committee report said some people are waiting over a year for their Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claims to be processed.
Published today, it finds only 51% of claims for PIP - the main disability benefit - were processed within 75 working days in 2024-25. The Commons spending watchdog said this is despite the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) target of 75%.
The report stated: "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 Department does not have an adequate plan to improve this in the short term."
MPs on the Committee said they knew of "constituents who have waited a long time for their claims to be processed, in some cases over a year". The DWP told the Committee this evidence was not showing up in the department's own statistics. But they "acknowledged that it was obviously a genuine situation that it needed to address," the MPs said.
Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, says disability claimants "may now expect a reliably poor service" from the DWP. He added: "Our Committee received reassurances three years ago that improvements would have manifested by now; we are now told that they are a further three years off.
"This is simply not good enough for our constituents, who we know risk being pushed into debt or poverty by a Department unresponsive to their needs."
Among the Committee's recommendations, it has called on the DWP to provide more detailed data on waiting times, including the longest wait recorded in 2024/25. PIP is the main disability benefit to help with extra living costs, including difficulty doing daily tasks, and is paid to people both in and out of work.
The benefit was the subject of a massive Labour rebellion last summer, which forced the government to abandon plans to restrict eligibility for PIP. Instead, ministers launched a review of PIP, led by DWP minister Sir Stephen Timms, which is expected to report back in the autumn.
A DWP spokeswoman said: “We’re fixing the broken welfare system we inherited by giving claimants the support they need to move into good, secure jobs and out of poverty. We’ve redeployed around 1,000 work coaches to help sick or disabled people who have been left behind, alongside the most ambitious employment reforms for a generation. These reforms are being delivered as we replace outdated systems through our ambitious £647million modernisation programme.
“We always aim to make PIP award decisions as quickly as possible, and the Timms Review is looking at PIP as a whole to make sure it is fit and fair for the future.”