Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average cost is to her Department of an application for personal independence payment by stage of application.

The average cost to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) of an application for Personal Independence Payment for 2016/17 is £407.61.

This cost is for the end to end position of a Claim for Personal Independence Payment i.e. the customer journey from initial contact to a decision being made.

We are not able to split the figure above by all of the stages within the Claim for Personal Independence Claim process but it can be split into the following elements:

• For the DWP Operational stages as a whole, the average unit cost is £187.40

• For the Contracted Assessment element the average unit cost is £220.21

We are unable to provide any further breakdown by stage of application as the information is not available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.