Chris Ruane – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the administration costs are, per claimant, of (a) disability living allowance and (b) personal independence payments.

Mike Penning

Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Disability Living Allowance (DLA) are different benefits with different delivery models. PIP includes a more objective assessment process, with a face-to-face consultation for most people. That is different to DLA, which is a self-assessed paper based process that purely looks at the type of health condition or impairment they have. It was always expected that PIP would produce an overall increased administration cost compared to DLA for these reasons. The current administration cost for DLA per claimant is £56.06. A comparable administration cost is currently unavailable for PIP.