Apply for Pension Credit and Housing Benefit
DWP's Apply for Pension Credit and Housing Benefit alpha assessment report
Apply for Pension Credit and Housing Benefit
| Assessment date | 09/04/2026 |
| Assessment stage | Alpha |
| Assessment type | Assessment |
| Service provider | Department for Work and Pensions |
| Result | Green |
Service description
Pension age citizens currently face complex, fragmented journeys when attempting to claim Pension Credit (PC) and Housing Benefit (HB). The benefits are currently administered separately, Pension Credit by DWP and Housing Benefit by Local Authorities. Each uses different systems, application forms, and workflows. In total to claim both benefits, citizens may engage with up to 16 different people or processes across DWP and their Local Authority.
When the financial support is needed, citizens must find information and apply for each benefit separately. Analysis shows that 27% of questions asked in both applications have an obvious overlap. This results in poor experiences and unnecessary effort for citizens, leading to low uptake of the benefits.
Operationally, the system is equally fragmented. Each Local Authority uses its own processing system and own version of the Housing Benefit application form with limited standardisation, meaning data-sharing with the department is inadequate. This causes the same citizen information to be processed independently, creating delays and double handling.
The impact of this fragmentation is significant, with many pension age citizens missing out on vital financial support: up to 100,000 pensioners enter relative poverty each year.
The proposal is a joined-up service that enables pension age citizens to apply for Pension Credit and Housing Benefit together, through a simplified, consistent and standardised experience.
The goal is to ensure users only need to tell us information for both benefits once, regardless of which organisation processes the claim and the channel they use. For now, the service is being developed within existing policy, legal, operational and technical constraints that shape the scope of what can be delivered initially and the future roadmap.
Service users
- primary users – pension age or approaching pension age citizens
- secondary users – includes Housing Benefit and Pension Credit benefit agents, third party organisations, and charities supporting our pension age citizens submitting their claims, housing associations and other social housing landlords
- tertiary users – private landlords, front-facing agents in Local Authorities or DWP, Universal Credit work coaches who might interact with our service to signpost citizens or support with their claims and evidence gathering
Things the service team has done well:
- demonstrated exemplary user research with a range of user types, and a nuanced understanding of users’ digital skills and confidence
- demonstrated impressive throughput from insight to solution design, both at a macro and micro level
- showed an impressive and accurate scoping of the proof of concept from a technical point of view
1. Understand users and their needs
Decision
The service was rated green for point 1 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
- assess the considerable number of user needs against service manual guidance about good user needs, to help condense the number and ensure they are solution‑agnostic. This will make it easier for the team to use and communicate the user needs the service should be designed around
- consider using acceptance criteria to user needs, which may also help to condense the overall number
2. Solve a whole problem for users
Decision
The service was rated green for point 2 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
- speak to other teams that have worked on similar challenges (bringing together more than one digital service) - such as the ‘Accessing childcare’ team at the Department for Education
- continue engaging closely with the existing Apply for Pension Credit team and Local Authorities to understand how existing service strengths and constraints may support or affect the intended outcomes of this service, and to identify and resolve dependencies
3. Provide a joined-up experience across all channels
Decision
The service was rated green for point 3 of the Standard.
4. Make the service simple to use
Decision
The service was rated green for point 4 of the Standard.
5. Make sure everyone can use the service
Decision
The service was rated green for point 5 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
- given the form includes repeated formats (addresses, dates) and that there are controls available (in the HTML attributes), consider how autocomplete might assist or interfere with desired user experience
6. Have a multidisciplinary team
Decision
The service was rated green for point 6 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
- whilst the mix of skills in the multidisciplinary team looks appropriate for this stage of development there is a heavy reliance on contractors and managed service provider personnel. The service owner should set out a plan for improving the ratio of civil servants to suppliers, aligned with government commitments, so that the majority of roles are civil servants as the service develops through the next phase. The approach to working with contractors or third parties will be revisited at the beta Service Standard assessment
7. Use agile ways of working
Decision
The service was rated green for point 7 of the Standard.
8. Iterate and improve frequently
Decision
The service was rated green for point 8 of the Standard.
9. Create a secure service which protects users’ privacy
Decision
The service was rated green for point 9 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
- continue modelling threats accurately and iteratively
- provide results of an IT Health Check (ITHC) and plans for ongoing security management
10. Define what success looks like and publish performance data
Decision
The service was rated green for point 10 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
- the team has been thoughtful over how it measures performance both during development and anticipating how the service will be measured once it is in use by users. The team should consider publishing regularly updated or live performance metrics in the public domain
11. Choose the right tools and technology
Decision
The service was rated green for point 11 of the Standard.
12. Make new source code open
Decision
The service was rated green for point 12 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
- better, closer integration of the open source release process with the live code
13. Use and contribute to open standards, common components and patterns
Decision
The service was rated green for point 13 of the Standard.
14. Operate a reliable service
Decision
The service was rated green for point 14 of the Standard.
Optional advice to help the service team continually improve the service:
- keeping Service Level Agreements (SLA) aligned with that of parent services (Retirement) is good practice and should be continued
Next Steps
[Green - alpha]
This service can now move into a private beta phase.
This report will be published on GOV.UK
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bringing-together-the-administration-of-pensioner-housin…