New welfare rules taking effect this week will let Personal Independence Payment claimants aged 25 and over keep awards for four years after an initial assessment, and for six years after a review. The change comes as ministers try to stop the system from buckling under pressure.
That pressure is no small thing. The number of people claiming PIP has climbed to 3.9 million, the benefit costs taxpayers £26 billion a year, and it is forecast to reach £41 billion a year by the end of the decade. Officials said there was an immediate need to act, with the assessment system at risk of falling over if capacity pressures were not addressed.
The timing matters because the government is not just adjusting dates on a form. It is responding to a backlog and a growing caseload that has left the welfare assessment system struggling to keep up, particularly as new PIP claimants have continued to rise. Senior Department for Work and Pensions officials have said longer awards should free up capacity and lead to more face-to-face assessments, rather than tying staff up in repeated checks on the same claims.
Helen Whately, the Conservative shadow work and pensions secretary, has attacked the move, saying fewer reviews would mean more people receiving handouts for longer at greater cost to the taxpayer. She said people who could work would be left on payments for years without anyone asking whether that was right for them or fair for the taxpayer, and accused Labour of watering down the checks that decide whether awards are fair.
Labour has argued the opposite, saying widening the period between checks would save money. But officials have privately admitted the law is being changed to manage the welfare backlog, and the Social Security Advisory Committee has already raised concerns about widening the gap between eligibility checks. The result is a policy built as much around preserving the system’s capacity as around changing how long claimants wait between reviews.
The open question is how far the new rules will go beyond easing immediate pressure. Officials have not given a public estimate for how many claimants aged 25 and over will be covered by the longer award periods, or how much the change will save or cost. What is clear is that the government is moving now because it sees the alternative as a system that could grind down under its own weight.
