DWP service standard targets for Carer’s Allowance, Attendance Allowance, DLA and Child Benefit, Digi Mart USA News: The Department for Work and Pensions has issued an update for Carer’s Allowance, Attendance Allowance, Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and Child Benefit claimants. The update comes after frustration from claimants over the length of wait times.
Neil Couling, director general of DWP Services and Fraud, said that when he started his job in April 2025, there were no standards for producing timely benefit awards. He described the existing PIP target as nonsense.
Couling said he set a 90 percent target across all the major benefits in his area. Carer’s Allowance, Attendance Allowance, Disability Living Allowance and Child Benefit all received 90 percent targets.
He said the approach was designed so that the targets could not be easily gamed.
“It was not about moving the goalposts; it was about having goalposts that worked,” Couling said.
Couling was also pressed by the Work and Pensions Committee over some disability claims taking six months to process. He told the committee that the process involves assessment and that the committee had rightly stressed the importance of handling vulnerable people carefully, with sensitivity and humanity.
He said 50 percent of assessments are not attended, often for good reasons. The process allows many “failed to attend” circumstances because of claimant vulnerability.
As a result, he said most of the wait time is taken up in the assessment process while officials try to avoid rushing assessments.
