DWP plan will 'speed up' handing people free £3,900 each

The DWP is bringing in more staff to help speed up the process as hundreds of thousands of people have been missing out on Pension Credit.

A new Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) plan will speed up claims for Pension Credit and give claimants a £3,900 boost. The DWP is bringing in more staff to help speed up the process as hundreds of thousands of people have been missing out on Pension Credit.

New benefit applicants may see their payments sooner as a result of the changes. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has disclosed that nearly 78% of all new Pension Credit claims are processed from the initial application to award decision letter within 50 working days.

Pensions Minister Emma Reynolds has confirmed that the DWP has "secured funding for additional staffing to improve processing times". The Pensions Minister stated: "The most recent information on processing times for Pension Credit was published in the DWP Annual Report and Accounts published on 22nd July 2024.

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"This shows that in 2023/24 DWP cleared 192,000 Pension Credit claims within the planned 50 working day timescale, equating to 77.7 per cent. The department has secured funding for additional staffing to improve processing times.”

She said: "The Department continues to assess the Pension Credit service. This led to the introduction of the online claim process, providing customers with a convenient alternative claim route, alongside the existing telephony and paper application methods. As the Department continues to modernise the Pension Credit service, we continue to review the user experience, balancing simplification of application with capturing the right information to ensure accuracy of award."

Ms Reynolds said: "We estimate that the number of pensioner units with an annual income of between £15,000 and £20,000 is approximately 1.5 million. This number has been rounded to the nearest 100,000. This estimate is based on Pensioners’ Incomes data derived from the Family Resources Survey and covers private households in the United Kingdom.

"A pensioner unit can be a single pensioner over State Pension age, a pensioner couple where one member is over State Pension age, or a pensioner couple where both members are over State Pension age."