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 reduce waiting times to speak to the Disability Service Centre.

We have increased Case Worker resource and consequently wait times on the PIP enquiry line have significantly improved in recent weeks.

It is not possible to increase performance further until the resource position improves further, because we have to deploy Case Workers on processing as well as telephony, to meet demand in both areas of work, which are equally important.

DWP is continually developing new technological capability aimed at providing better information, tailored to customer needs, at the point of call. Going forward, this approach will also help to reduce waiting times for customers.