Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 7 July 2014, Official Report, column 110W, on personal independence payment, what the average clearance times were for claims from terminally ill people at (a) 31 January 2014 and (b) 30 June 2014.
Answered by Mike Penning
Statistics on clearance times are intended for future publication and the Department's analysts are currently considering what information will be included in the release.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people are currently waiting for an assessment for personal independence payment in the Halton local authority area; and what the average waiting time for an assessment is in that area.
Answered by Mike Penning
There are several reasons why a registered claim may not yet have a decision, for example the claimant has not yet returned their additional information form or is awaiting their assessment date, DWP have not yet made a decision on their claim, or the claimant has advised that they wish to withdraw their claim. At the end of March 2014, around 1300 people in the Halton Local Authority had registered a New Claim for PIP and around 400 decisions had been made.
Statistics on clearance times are intended for future publication and the Department's analysts are currently considering what information will be included in the release.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what forecast his Department has made of the length of time each part of the claims process for personal independence payment (PIP) up to provision of accurate and targeted assessments will take; and what guidance his Department uses for a reasonable amount of time for an individual to wait for an accurate targeted assessment for PIP.
Answered by Mike Penning
We keep the time taken to process claims under constant review and are absolutely committed to improving performance. We accept that the delays faced by some people are unacceptable, and we are committed to putting that right. By the Autumn, we expect no one to be waiting for an assessment for longer than 26 weeks and by the end of the year, we expect no one will be waiting longer than 16 weeks.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to better identify personal independence payment claimaints who could be assessed solely on the basis of written evidence and without the need for face-to-face assessments.
Answered by Mike Penning
I refer the hon. Member to the written answer I gave the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), on 2 July 2014, Official Report, column 641W.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has conducted an impact assessment of the effects of the time taken to resolve claims for personal independence payments on claimants.
Answered by Mike Penning
We keep the time taken to process claims under constant review and are absolutely committed to improving performance. We are already seeing improvements to our processes and will continue to work to further reduce delays and backlogs.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department took to reduce delays to personal independence payment (PIP) special rules claims; how long it took to resolve those delays; what steps he plans to take to reduce delays to PIP claims in the normal rules; and what estimate he has made of the time that will be taken to reduce those delays.
Answered by Mike Penning
As soon as I became aware of the length of time it was taking some Special Rules cases to be processed I took action to reduce the timescales and introduced:
• A dedicated phone service with specially trained staff;
• An electronic transfer of information between a claimant's health professional, DWP and assessment providers.
• a trial of a new process to enable decisions to be made in-house with support from health care professionals
I am pleased to say that we are now seeing improvements to clearance times for claims from terminally ill people.
We have acknowledged that claims under our normal rules are currently taking too long. We are absolutely committed to improving performance – ours and that of the assessment providers. We are already seeing improvements to our processes and will continue to work to further reduce delays and backlogs.
By the Autumn, we expect no one to be waiting for an assessment for longer than 26 weeks and by the end of the year, we expect no one will be waiting longer than 16 weeks.