The number of personal independence payment planned reviews carried out in the most recent quarter has almost doubled compared to the preceding year, the latest DWP statistics show, but success rates for both reviews and fresh claims have fallen.
Main statistics
PIP statistics for the quarter to October 2025 were released just before Christmas. They show that in that quarter, there were:
- 210,000 registrations and 170,000 clearances for new claims
- 34,000 changes of circumstance reported and 30,000 cleared
- 25,000 registrations and 20,000 clearances for DLA reassessments
- 140,000 planned award reviews registered and 220,000 cleared
- 65,000 mandatory reconsiderations (MRs) registered and 67,000 cleared
PIP planned review numbers
The DWP have diverted staff from fresh claims work to reviews in order to reduce the huge backlog, with the result that the quarter to October saw the highest level of planned award review clearances since PIP began. 96% more planned reviews were carried out than in the same quarter last year.
However, this has been at the expenses of other claimants: clearance volumes for new claims, changes of circumstance and DLA reassessments decreased by 25%, 20% and 10% respectively over the same period.
So, 40,000 fewer new PIP claims were cleared than were registered. This is in spite of the fact that the number of new claims is actually falling, down 6% from last year.
The average time taken to reach a decision for a fresh PIP claim has risen from 14 weeks last October to 16 weeks this October.
Success rates
The success rate for new PIP claims has dropped dramatically in the space of a year, just 38% of new claims got an award this quarter, compared to 44% a year ago.
Looking only at claimants who attended an assessment, rather than being disqualified or dropping out earlier, 47% got an award compared with 52% last year.
The DWP do not give statistics for planned award reviews, but using the StatXplore tool, we have created them.
They show that whilst the percentage of awards that were decreased or disallowed remained very similar, there was a big drop in the percentage of awards that were increased.
Disallowed: 5.88% in October 2024, 6.62% in October 2025.
Decreased: 5.65% in October 2024, 5.33% in October 2025.
Increased: 24.24% in October 2024, 14.45% in October 2025.
Maintained: 64.22% in October 2024, 73.5% in October 2025.
Reduction in planned award reviews
The DWP seem to have succeeded in making PIP planned award reviews virtually financially neutral: three quarters of awards stay the same and almost the same proportion of claimants have their award decreased or disallowed as have it increased.
This gives further justification to the decision to extend initial the length of PIP awards made from April 2026 to three years for claimants aged over 25. At present, 77% of new claims get a short term award of 0 to 2 years.
In addition, claimants who remain entitled will get a five year award at their next review.
The probability is that this will free up assessors to focus more on new claims, especially via face-to-face assessments, with the aim of further reducing the number of awards.
You can read the latest PIP statistics here.
