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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Patrick Butler Social policy editor

Five-month disability benefits delay causing hardship, says Citizens Advice

Back view of a disabled woman in a wheelchair taking her dog for a walk at the park.
About 327,000 people, many on low incomes, are waiting for a Pip application to be processed, with nearly £300m of benefit payments held up. Photograph: Dougal Waters/Getty Images

Hundreds of thousands of disabled and chronically ill people in the UK are missing out on cash payments worth up to £157 a week because bureaucratic delays have driven up processing times for disability benefit claims to an average of five months.

The Citizens Advice charity said the backlog in personal independence payment (Pip) claims processing was causing widespread stress and hardship. Roughly 150 people an hour were contacting its advisers for one-to-one help with the delays.

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