Disability Living Allowance benefits checker launched The total number of people claiming the payment was 3.2 million last year, up from 1.1 million when it was introduced in 1992. Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has said he will replace the DLA with a benefit called Personal Independence Payment, which will have tighter criteria and a simpler approval system. A DWP "impact assessment" of the plans, released last year, disclosed that the change would cut benefit payments by £2.24bn annually and lead to about 500,000 fewer claimants. Esther McVey, the work and pensions minister, said: "Disability Living Allowance is an outdated benefit introduced over 20 years ago and needs reform to better reflect today's understanding of disability. We have extended the reassessment period and have made significant changes to the assessment based on feedback from disabled people and their organisations. The new benefit will be introduced in April for new claims from areas including Merseyside, North West England, Cumbria, Cheshire and North-East England. People in these locations will be the first to claim PIP. From June DWP will then accept new claims for PIP from the rest of the country. Reassessment of current DLA claimants will start from October - but only if there is a change in how their health condition affects them or if they come to the end of their existing DLA award. This means the majority of existing claimants won't be reassessed until 2015 or later, giving DWP time to consider the findings of their first independent review in 2014. Children or those 65 or over are not affected.