Disability Living Allowance for Children

6. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of the proportion of disability living allowance for children applications that have been approved by his Department within its target timeframes in the last two years.

In the six months up to March last year, we appointed an additional 111 case managers to help deal with increased demand for child DLA. The current target is to clear 90% of new child DLA claims in 45 days. Performance has steadily improved, and I am pleased to say that in March we did hit that target.

Over the past two years, only 3.5% of applications for disability living allowance for children have been approved by the Department for Work and Pensions within its own target timeframe. Parents of children with disabilities work tirelessly to ensure that their children can have the same opportunities as everyone else, and the disregard the DWP has shown towards supporting their claims is unacceptable. One of my constituents has experienced those lengthy delays first-hand and an administrative error meant she did not even receive her first payment award. Will the Minister commit to urgent action to ensure that the DWP’s pathetic processing time for children’s DLA applications does not continue?

As I said to the hon. Member, we did hit the 90% target last month. That reflects a steady improvement over the last few months. We are also introducing a new online evidence portal to improve evidence gathering, in particular from schools and people in education professions. That will also reduce delays, and we plan to roll that out fully in autumn. We are on the case and making significant improvements.