The government's welfare changes for disabled people in England, Scotland and Wales have been delayed.
People will move from Disability Living Allowance to the Personal Independence Payment next week only in certain areas instead of the whole of Great Britain.
Work and pensions minister Mike Penning said reassessing people was "taking longer than expected", but introducing the scheme "gradually" was beneficial.
Labour's Rachel Reeves said it showed there was "chaos" in the department.
Claimants will remain on Disability Living Allowance (DLA) for the time being except those in Wales, the East and West Midlands and East Anglia, who will transfer to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) from Monday if their condition changes.
The government said the need for the alteration had only came to light at the beginning of October.
A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said Labour's claim of chaos over the changes was "wrong".
Few would dispute that the government's plans for reforming the welfare state are ambitious - ministers have described them as the biggest shake-up of the system ever attempted.
But the programme is politically dangerous if Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, is unable to deliver the changes.
Problems with the introduction of the Universal Credit have been highlighted by the National Audit Office.
But those around Mr Duncan Smith insist that change - and the replacement of the Disability Living Allowance with the new Personal Independence Payment - will still be completed on time.
"We have deliberately chosen to introduce PIP it in a phased way, learning as we go, to make sure it is done safely and effectively. We believe disabled people will welcome this approach," the spokesman said.
The government has said reform of disability benefits is essential because of increasing costs.
Ministers point out that the number of people claiming DLA has increased from about one million to 3.3 million since it was introduced in 1992 and that it costs the taxpayer £13bn a year.
Ms Reeves, shadow work and pensions secretary, said PIP followed the government's Work Programme and Universal Credit schemes in being beset by difficulties.
She said: "The delivery problems we are seeing at the Department for Work and Pensions now risk descending into farce. But for thousands of disabled people who are already extremely anxious about the changes, this is no joke.
Vulnerable people"Not only is David Cameron's government out of touch but it's increasingly incompetent."
Work and Pensions Select Committee chair Dame Anne Begg, meanwhile, said delay in itself was "not a bad thing".
"I'd rather that we get it right because very often the people we're dealing with in the reform of the welfare system are people who are very vulnerable, who find it quite difficult to navigate their way through the system," the Labour MP for Aberdeen South told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"But, at the same time, the constant delays are also causing anxiety.
"People know that it's coming but they never know quite when they're going to be called in for a reassessment and exactly what the outcomes are going to be."
Disability charity Scope said the move was just a "tweak" and that it still believed the whole reassessment process was "too blunt an instrument".
The adjustment to the timetable will not affect people in Northern Ireland.
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