"Relevant partners" refers to charities and organisations with expertise in disability benefits, welfare rights and claimant support, such as Citizens Advice.

As part of keeping this area under review, the Department will continue to consider evidence about the activity of commercial providers and any poor practice, including where this may affect the quality or reliability of evidence submitted in support of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claims.

Healthcare Professionals (HPs) and Case Managers are required to undertake a detailed review of all available evidence as part of the assessment and decision-making process and to assess the consistency, relevance and sufficiency of the information provided in support of a claim.

The PIP Assessment Guide requires HPs to consider any inconsistencies in the evidence available, determine whether further supporting evidence is required, and record the rationale for the conclusions reached. Where appropriate, HPs may seek additional evidence from professionals involved in the claimant’s care, including GPs, hospital clinicians and other relevant practitioners, to help inform their advice to DWP.

DWP is focussed on preventing fraud and error from entering the system and has robust detect and correct capabilities in place to address inaccurate payments at the earliest opportunity.

"Relevant partners" refers to charities and organisations with expertise in disability benefits, welfare rights and claimant support, such as Citizens Advice.

As part of keeping this area under review, the Department will continue to consider evidence about the activity of commercial providers and any poor practice, including where this may affect the quality or reliability of evidence submitted in support of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claims.

Healthcare Professionals (HPs) and Case Managers are required to undertake a detailed review of all available evidence as part of the assessment and decision-making process and to assess the consistency, relevance and sufficiency of the information provided in support of a claim.

The PIP Assessment Guide requires HPs to consider any inconsistencies in the evidence available, determine whether further supporting evidence is required, and record the rationale for the conclusions reached. Where appropriate, HPs may seek additional evidence from professionals involved in the claimant’s care, including GPs, hospital clinicians and other relevant practitioners, to help inform their advice to DWP.

DWP is focussed on preventing fraud and error from entering the system and has robust detect and correct capabilities in place to address inaccurate payments at the earliest opportunity.

Information on the day rate is already available. Members of the Timms Review steering group will be paid at a rate of £300 a day, with an expected time commitment of up to 5 days a month. The Review’s two external co-chairs, who were appointed in October 2025, are paid at a rate of £400 a day, with the same expected time commitment.

The rates per month may vary.

The Timms Review, the first ever full review of PIP, was launched to ensure we have a system that supports disabled people to achieve better health, higher living standards and greater in-dependence, including through employment.

As part of this work, the Review is gathering evidence from a wide range of sources, including lived experience, expert insight, existing research and new data, to inform its analysis and recommendations.

The steering group published its interim report on 9 July, providing an update on its work to date, including an evidence pack and a summary of the Call for Evidence, which received over 38,000 responses.

The steering group is now moving towards designing and testing its recommendations for change, which will be published in a final report in the autumn.

The Timms Review, the first ever full review of PIP, was launched to ensure we have a system that supports disabled people to achieve better health, higher living standards and greater in-dependence, including through employment.

As part of this work, the Review is gathering evidence from a wide range of sources, including lived experience, expert insight, existing research and new data, to inform its analysis and recommendations.

The steering group published its interim report on 9 July, providing an update on its work to date, including an evidence pack and a summary of the Call for Evidence, which received over 38,000 responses.

The steering group is now moving towards designing and testing its recommendations for change, which will be published in a final report in the autumn.

The requested information for new claims under normal rules in areas under DWP policy ownership are included below. This data is for initial decisions between 1 April 2024 and 31 December 2025, the most recent date for mandatory reconsiderations and appeals data.

Table 1: award rates (%) for initial decision, mandatory reconsideration (MR), and appeal by condition subgroup.

Notes:

• There were insufficient appeals for claimants with conduct disorder for an appeal overturn rate to be meaningful.
• The rate for MRs is the percentage of cleared MRs which resulted in an award being changed.
• The overturn rate for appeals is the number of appeals that were overturned at a tribunal as a percentage of appeals which were cleared or lapsed (decision changed by DWP without going to a tribunal).
• The claimants’ primary conditions at the time of initial decision were used to categorise these percentages. Many PIP claimants have additional conditions which factor into the decisions made and claimants who have the listed conditions as supplementary conditions will not be included in the table.
• Percentages have been rounded to the nearest percentage point.

With over one million young people not in education, employment and training, this Government will not leave an entire generation of young people behind. The Government is investing an additional £2.5 billion over the next three years into the Youth Guarantee and the Growth and Skills Levy.

This investment will support almost one million young people and create up to 500,000 opportunities to earn and learn, including through expanded network of Youth Hubs, earlier intensive support in Jobs Centres through a new Youth Guarantee Gateway, additional work experience and training opportunities, a £3,000 Youth Jobs Grant and £2,000 apprenticeship hiring payment for employers, and a fully funded six month job for long-term unemployed 18–24-year-olds.

We also recognise the crisis of participation that Alan Milburn has so clearly laid out in his interim report. We will use this interim report to continue to build our reforms and look forward to final recommendations in the Autumn.

The government's Employment Rights Act 2025 is tackling one-sided flexibility partly through a right to guaranteed hours, where the number of hours offered reflects a qualifying worker’s working hours during a reference period.

The government has published a comprehensive assessment of the potential impacts of the zero hours contract measures in the Employment Rights Act 2025. This includes consideration of the potential impact of the right to guaranteed hours on employment for different types of roles or groups in the labour market.

The government is consulting on these measures, and will consider responses before finalising regulations and implementation.

Skills England is focused on developing new, and reviewing existing, apprenticeships which will have the greatest impact on government priorities, including supporting young people into employment and supporting industrial strategy and other priority sectors.

Skills England has engaged with stakeholders on the development of a counselling apprenticeship. This included exploring whether the existing Level 4 Counsellor occupational standard, which was developed for Higher Technical Qualification (HTQ) provision, could be used as the basis for an apprenticeship. However, to date, no decision has been made on the development of such an apprenticeship.

The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.

DWP is committed to expanding its digital services enabling more customers to engage with us online. Although some benefits, such as Universal Credit, can be claimed online and any further communications can also be conducted digitally through the use of the customer journal, applying online does not automatically mean all subsequent communications will be digital.

DWP operates a multi-channel approach to ensure customers receive important information in a way that is accessible, secure and inclusive. In some cases, letters remain the formal method for notifying customers of a decision or providing information about their award and appeal rights. Postal notifications also support legal, policy and accessibility requirements for certain decisions and customer groups.

Our approach is to expand digital services while maintaining alternative channels so that no customer is excluded. We also remain committed to ensuring that customers have a choice of those alternative channels.

The Department is making full use of automated notifications of earnings from HMRC to notify Carer’s Allowance recipients that they may be exceeding the weekly earnings limit. This should reduce both the number and size of overpayments linked to earnings, and was a measure welcomed by Liz Sayce in her independent review into such overpayments.

With respect to recovery of debt caused by overpayments, the Department remains committed to working with all customers to agree repayment terms, and strives to set affordable, sustainable repayment plans. Anyone who is unable to afford the proposed rate of repayment can contact DWP’s Debt Management at the earliest opportunity.

For a case to be considered for prosecution, there must have been a suspicion of fraud, a full criminal investigation, consideration of the public interest test and agreement from the Crown Prosecution Service to bring the case forward.

The total number of cases outstanding at all stages of the Personal Independence Payment Award Review (PIP) process, at the end of May 2026 is 300,000.

Please note this data is derived from unpublished management information, which was collected for internal Departmental use only, and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard and represents England and Wales only. The figure has been rounded to the nearest 10,000 cases.

All claims remain in payment whilst award reviews are in progress and award increases identified during a planned review will be backdated as appropriate. Should customers report a change of circumstance and trigger an unplanned review, their claim will be prioritised alongside new claims.

We are committed to ensuring people can access financial support through PIP in a timely manner. Reducing customer journey times for our claimants is a priority for the Department and we are working constantly to make improvements to our service.

We know PIP can be improved, which is why we launched the Timms Review, which is being co-produced with disabled people and their organisations to ensure the benefit is fair and fit for the future. The Review aims to report to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in Autumn 2026 and we have committed to reporting its outcomes to Parliament.

The Department is making full use of Verify Earnings and Pensions alerts from HMRC to notify Carer’s Allowance recipients that they may be exceeding the weekly earnings limit. This should reduce both the number and size of overpayments linked to earnings, and was a measure welcomed by Liz Sayce in her independent review into such overpayments. The Government has also launched a Call for Evidence as part of its longer-term work on modernisation of Carer’s Allowance. This includes seeking views on the way in which earnings interact with the benefit.

All claimants, regardless of their nationality, must demonstrate that they are resident in the UK and have an immigration status that qualifies them to receive taxpayer-funded benefits.

Migrants with recourse to public funds are subject to the same eligibility criteria as any other claimant, including the need to be ‘habitually resident’ (meaning they have made the UK their home) in addition to having a legal right to claim benefits.

Most non-UK nationals are granted an immigration status by the Home Office with a ‘No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF)’ condition. Individuals may have their NRPF condition removed once they are granted Indefinite Leave to Remain/settled status, which is usually after 5 years. These claimants can still access contribution-based benefits such as New-Style Jobseeker’s Allowance.

The full eligibility criteria, including the residency tests, for each benefit type can be found on GOV.UK.

Support for households affected by rising heating oil prices is administered by local authorities through the Crisis and Resilience Fund (CRF). Local authorities are responsible for determining eligibility, processing applications and holding data relating to applications and awards.

Please see attached breakdown of spend for ‘Purchase of goods/services – Hosting’ and ‘Purchase of good and service - Social care’.

Where a parent provides credible evidence that income has been misrepresented, the case may be referred to the Financial Investigations Unit (FIU). The FIU investigates whether the financial information used in the child maintenance assessment is correct and will either confirm the existing assessment or identify grounds for a revised liability.

Investigation timescales vary according to the complexity of the case. All credible allegations are investigated thoroughly and proportionately, with relevant evidence fully considered before a decision is made, helping to ensure accurate and evidence-based outcomes. The Child Maintenance Service's primary objective remains securing maintenance for children, and more intrusive investigatory action may, in some cases, risk disrupting ongoing payments.

FIU referrals and outcomes, for the last financial year, can be found at GOV.UK, table 7 in the following link: Child Maintenance Service statistics: data to March 2026 - GOV.UK

Where a parent provides credible evidence that income has been misrepresented, the case may be referred to the Financial Investigations Unit (FIU). The FIU investigates whether the financial information used in the child maintenance assessment is correct and will either confirm the existing assessment or identify grounds for a revised liability.

Investigation timescales vary according to the complexity of the case. All credible allegations are investigated thoroughly and proportionately, with relevant evidence fully considered before a decision is made, helping to ensure accurate and evidence-based outcomes. The Child Maintenance Service's primary objective remains securing maintenance for children, and more intrusive investigatory action may, in some cases, risk disrupting ongoing payments.

FIU referrals and outcomes, for the last financial year, can be found at GOV.UK, table 7 in the following link: Child Maintenance Service statistics: data to March 2026 - GOV.UK

Where a parent provides credible evidence that income has been misrepresented, the case may be referred to the Financial Investigations Unit (FIU). The FIU investigates whether the financial information used in the child maintenance assessment is correct and will either confirm the existing assessment or identify grounds for a revised liability.

Investigation timescales vary according to the complexity of the case. All credible allegations are investigated thoroughly and proportionately, with relevant evidence fully considered before a decision is made, helping to ensure accurate and evidence-based outcomes. The Child Maintenance Service's primary objective remains securing maintenance for children, and more intrusive investigatory action may, in some cases, risk disrupting ongoing payments.

FIU referrals and outcomes, for the last financial year, can be found at GOV.UK, table 7 in the following link: Child Maintenance Service statistics: data to March 2026 - GOV.UK

With over one million young people not in education, employment and training, this Government will not leave an entire generation of young people behind. The Government is investing an additional £2.5 billion over the next three years into the Youth Guarantee and the Growth and Skills Levy.

This investment will support almost one million young people and create up to 500,000 opportunities to earn and learn, including through expanded network of Youth Hubs, earlier intensive support in Jobs Centres through a new Youth Guarantee Gateway, additional work experience and training opportunities, a £3,000 Youth Jobs Grant and £2,000 apprenticeship hiring payment for employers, and a fully funded six month job for long-term unemployed 18–24-year-olds.

We also recognise the crisis of participation that Alan Milburn has so clearly laid out in his interim report. We will use this interim report to continue to build our reforms and look forward to final recommendations in the Autumn.

The government recognises that temporary work can help young people, including those not in education, employment or training (NEET), to gain valuable experience and enter the labour market. Through the Youth Guarantee, the government is expanding access to work experience, training and employment support to help more young people move into work. For example, several Youth Guarantee Trailblazers are connecting young people who are NEET with work placement opportunities to help them gain the experience they need and develop the skills to get sustained employment.

The Employment Rights Act preserves flexibility for genuinely temporary work, including through limited-term contracts. The government is consulting employers, trade unions and wider civil society to ensure the right to guaranteed hours works for businesses and workers.