Every parliamentary written question tabled by Sarah Olney this session, with the full answer and department. Back to the MP page.
Showing 21–24 of 24 · Department for Work and Pensions
With reference to the oral contribution of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 29 July 2024 on Public Spending: Inheritance, Official Report, column 1033, how many people have applied for pension credit since that date.
We have recently published Weekly Pension Credit claims received from 1 April 2024 to 22 September 2024 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) which provides the number of Pension Credit claims received by the department.
What the average wait for a pension credit application to be approved was in each year since 2015.
The Department does not hold information on the annual average waiting time for Pension Credit and cannot provide the figures requested. The Department does publish our annual performance against a 50 working day clearance rate for Pension Credit in the DWP Annual Report and Accounts DWP annual report and accounts 2023 to 2024 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). Of 248,000 Pension Credit claims cleared in performance year 2023/24, 192,000 were cleared within the planned 50-day timescale, equating to 77.7%. 56,000, 22.3% were cleared outside of the of the 10-week planned timescale.
If she will make an estimate of the average waiting time between a pension credit application and a decision by the Department.
The most recent information on processing times for Pension Credit was published in the DWP Annual Report and Accounts on 22nd July 2024 (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dwp-annual-report-and-accounts-2023-to-2024/dwp-annual-report-and-accounts-2023-to-2024-html). This shows that in 2023/24 DWP cleared 192,000 Pension Credit claims within the planned 50 working day timescale, equating to 77.7%.
How many people are waiting to be assessed for pension credit.
The total outstanding Pension Credit claims as at the end of week commencing 30th September 2024 is 77,703. This includes 8,245 advanced claims where the application can be started up to 4 months before reaching State Pension age. The Department is significantly increasing the resource on Pension Credit to ensure it processes claims as quickly as possible, with over 500 additional staff to support the increase in applications generated from the successful Pension Credit take-up campaign. If a claim is made by 21 December, Pension Credit can be backdated for three months if the entitlement conditions have been met throughout that period, and if the claimant was eligible they would also receive a Winter Fuel Payment.