Work on an entirely digital service for claimants of PIP support began more than 10 years ago but, despite showing benefits, the service is still in a limited trial mode
Ongoing tests of a “fully online” process through which citizens can apply for the Personal Independence Payment benefit have demonstrated a three-week improvement in the waiting time for eligibility decisions.
Despite these demonstrable improvements – and 10 years after a digital PIP offering first went into private beta testing – the online claims service remains in a trial phase in which it is available only to a limited number of claimants.
PIP is the UK’s main disability benefit for adults, and provides weekly payments of up to £187.45 to help recipients with daily living and travel costs. A total of 3.7 million people across England and Wales – and 3,000 Scottish residents – currently claim PIP, with the majority of these required to begin their application with a phone call to the Department for Work and Pensions.
In recent years, the majority of these callers have, at least, been offered a digital form that can be filled out on a claimant’s device – but then must typically be printed out and posted back to government.
A digital claims platform was in beta testing as far back as 2015 and, since summer 2023, a wider trial process has seen applicants in about 160 of the UK’s near-3,000 postal districts have been offered an online claims process. After these tests had been running for several months, ministers indicated that government intended to complete the rollout of the fully digital service across the country by the end of 2024.
Six months into 2025 and online PIP claims remain available only “in a limited number of postcodes for some customers”, according to DWP permanent secretary Sir Peter Schofield.
In a letter providing an update to parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, the departmental chief added that data gathered during the early months of tests of online service had shown that claims were typically assessed almost three weeks quicker than via the manual route.
“Initial evaluation of this new service in the first 19 weeks after digital self-serve went live on GOV.UK found that, on average, applications reach initial decision 20 days faster,” Schofield said. “Within the postcodes where the fully online service is available, the department has noted an increase in the number of PIP claims that are processed in 75 working days.”
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Across the whole of the 2023/24 year, only 52% of claims were processed within a period of 15 working weeks. During the current year – for which online claims for some areas have been available throughout – this figure has risen to 75%.
“In addition to the testing of the fully online service, most PIP customers are now offered the option to submit their health information online, after they have called us to begin their claim,” the perm sec said. “While we cannot currently say to what extent this is helping to reduce journey times, this is bringing benefits to customers now, removing postage times.”
The digitisation of PIP claims and processes forms part of the DWP’s wider Health Transformation Programme (HTP) – a £3.2bn scheme that forms part of the Government Major Projects Portfolio.
Scholfield told MPs that tech reform “transformation will be crucial to delivering improvements to the PIP service, particularly in the context of increased demand.
“HTP is transforming the entire PIP service, from finding out about benefits and eligibility through to decisions and payments,” he added. “One of the programme’s strategic outcomes is improved customer experience with shorter journey times. Enabling customers to make their claims online will play a key role in achieving this outcome. For example, as I noted in the hearing, the digital application service removes postage time, reducing the overall journey time.”
The most recent major DWP project data indicates that HTP is due to complete in September 2029 – five years later than was initially scheduled when work began in 2018.
In its work on enabling a completely online claims process for PIP, “the programme is currently focused on making this option available to a wider range of customer groups and will be considering how take-up can be encouraged”, Schofield said.
