Retirees are waiting less time to get their state pension payments as the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has slashed its processing times over the past year .

New figures shared exclusively with The i Paper show that the DWP has dramatically improved how quickly it processes new state pension claims, with average turnaround times now measured in days rather than in weeks.

According to the data obtained via a freedom of information (FOI) request to the DWP by Quilter, the average processing time for new state pension claims fell from 1.67 weeks in May 2024 to 0.18 weeks – less than two days – by May 2025.

The number of claims taking more than six weeks to process also plummeted.

In May 2024, over 8,000 claims took between six and 12 weeks to complete, while by the same tim

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