Benefits and Work has begun to hear from readers who have received letters telling them that their personal independence payment (PIP) award has been extended for up to four years under a new review process. The news will come as a massive relief to most people who hear from the DWP, but many thousands of claimants may miss out on an increase in their PIP as a result of the shortcut.
Back in May we revealed that the DWP had enacted a new regulation, coming into force in June, which allows them to extend the length of any fixed term PIP award for claimants aged 25 and over where it was considered “necessary to do so to safeguard the efficient administration of personal independence payment”
Essentially, this means that the department can extend awards where it is facing a huge backlog of reassessments, as it is now. The new regulations only allows the DWP to extend the award at its current rate, they can’t reduce or increase it.
This weekend, Benefits and Work began to hear from readers who have received extensions ranging from 2-4 years under the new regulations.
“I’ve currently got a pip letter today that says I won’t need an accessment and they have extended until 2030. It also says, we might be in contact a year before but we might also extend your award before then.
“It says words for word “We have changed how we review some personal Independence Payments (PIP). This means that we have Extended your PIP award.”
“My claim was due to be re assessed in April 2027. I have been extremely anxious about it. Today I found out i was having my claim extended until May 2029. I was over the moon. It has taken a massive weight on my mind for the next 2years & 10 months. I didn’t think it was real at first, until i read this post.”
“My end date for pip was December 26….letter yesterday extending it to December 28….such a relief.”
The DWP have not said how they are deciding which claimants will receive an extension, how many will be affected or how they calculate the length of the extension in each case.
What readers should be aware of, however, is that the decision to extend your award at its current rate is appealable or that they can ask for a change of circumstances review.
This is vital to know, because many claimants whose condition has worsened choose not to tell the DWP, even though they think they are now entitled to a higher rate, because of a fear of losing the award they already have. Instead, they feel it is safer to wait until their planned award review to inform the DWP.
But these new extensions do not involve any sort of assessment, so the opportunity to present evidence that you are entitled to higher rates is lost.
As we explained in a very recent article, the percentage of PIP awards that were increased as a result of a planned award review was as high as one in four until September 2024, when there was a sudden and unexplained fall.
So, for most people, a letter telling them that they have won a reprieve from assessment for several years will be nothing but wonderful news. But for a significant proportion, it will mean that unless they feel able to challenge the decision or ask for a change of circumstances review, they will spend years more on an award that they believe is less than they are entitled to.
Meanwhile the DWP will save itself a lot of work and a lot of money.
We’d be happy to receive a copy of the extension letter from you if you have received one, so that we can study and share the text. You can anonymise your letter before sending it or we will do so on receipt – we will only publish the standard text, not a copy of the letter itself.
Members who do decide to ask for a change of circumstances review can download our Guide to PIP Claims and reviews from this page and members who want to challenge the review decision can download our guides to PIP mandatory reconsiderations and appeals from the same page.
Stay updated
The DWP have, as yet, given no details on how they are deciding who will receive an extension or how they are deciding on the length of those extensions, with readers posting news of extensions of anywhere from four years to just five days. We'll provide more information as soon as we have it. To make sure you know what is happening, sign up for our free, fortnightly newsletter.
Letter text
Update: we have now seen part of the text of the letters the DWP are sending out – though we are still hoping to see a full copy of the letter, which is 4 pages long. The excerpt reads:
We have changed how often we review some Personal Independence Payment (PIP) awards. This means we have extended your PIP award.
What this means for you
Your current PIP award has been extended to 8 February 2030.
You do not need to do anything. We will contact you again after 8 February 2029 to see if your needs have changed and if you are getting the right amount of PIP.
We may extend the date of your PIP award again. If we do we will write to you to tell you about this.
We will continue to pay your PIP payments as normal.
Please tell us about any change in your circumstances
If your circumstances change, please let us know.
Call us straight away, using the phone number on the front page of this letter.
Someone else can call for you. But you will need to be with them when they call. You can also write to the address shown on the front page of this letter.
Update 5 July
From comments and emails received so far, it looks like most of the extensions are being given to claimants whose awards were due to end in 2026, 2027 or early to mid-2028.
Extensions mostly range from one year to four years, although there have been some extremely short ones of just a matter of days and at least one longer one, at six years.
It looks like the DWP are taking a large number of reviews due in the next two years and spreading them across a period from possibly mid-2028 to around 2031 - again there are exceptions to this.
The aim is to get rid of the current PIP review backlog and free up assessor time to do more face-to-face assessments for both PIP and the WCA.
There's no evidence yet that where you live in England or Wales makes a difference or that the type of condition you have is taken into consideration.
It seems very likely that the extensions are being decided by an algorithm, with no other human involvement in the process.
The DWP are choosing to keep the whole system secret, but we'll publish updates if things become clearer.
