DWP trials PIP changes affecting thousands of claimants
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has confirmed it has begun trialling a new system to assess personal independence payment (PIP) claimants after a whistleblower raised concerns about the schemes.
Under current rules, healthcare professionals such as nurses, paramedics and physiotherapists are tasked with performing functional assessments and rating the claimant based on the extent of ability limitations. These are spread across two categories, daily living and mobility, with high scores in both qualifying for a maximum of £194.60 per week.
It is understood that the pilot will see some of this workload transferred from assessors to DWP case managers to decide how to allocate points based on the information provided by the assessor. As before, this case manager is the final decision maker.
The DWP has confirmed the trial will initially affect 4 per cent of PIP claimants – around 150,000 people. If successful, it could be transferred to a separate DWP assessment used to test the suitability of the health-related element of universal credit.
Disability campaigners described the plans as “absolutely baffling”, arguing the trial would result in more wrong decisions and diminish the importance of human involvement in face-to-face assessments.
The DWP’s anonymous tipster, who leaked the pilot’s existence, said: “Decisions about complex, variable and particularly mental health conditions require clinical insight and direct assessment experience.
“Removing healthcare professionals from decision-making will remove key medical nuances, leading to lower quality, less accurate and less fair outcomes,” they told charity Disability Rights UK in a statement.
“Many vulnerable beneficiaries will face wrong decisions, increased stress, financial hardship and unnecessary appeals.”
The report comes as disability minister Sir Stephen Timms continues his review of PIP, the most sought-after health and disability benefit in the UK with four million claimants. It was announced last July after Labor MPs threatened to backtrack on ministers’ plans to cut aid spending by adjusting aid eligibility.
The government has said the review will be produced in meaningful partnership with disabled people and will not reconsider plans to change the PIP points system at least until the minister publishes its findings in the autumn.
Disability Rights England’s head of policy, Fazilet Hadi, said it was “absolutely surprising” that the new trial had been launched as this review continues its work.
He added: “Preventing health professionals from making recommendations based on their assessment and asking them to simply pass information to DWP case managers to make decisions is a recipe for disaster that will result in thousands of poorly informed and inaccurate decisions.
“PIP is deeply personal; we have to talk about the effects of our injuries and health conditions, which many of us find emotionally and practically difficult.
“When recommendations are made by people we actually talk to, we at least have a chance of understanding our individual needs and circumstances.”
A DWP spokesman said: “Case managers already make all final PIP decisions; this has not changed.
“This small-scale trial is about rebalancing roles so that assessors can focus on what they do best, freeing up capacity by reducing duplication and empowering case managers to apply their own judgment based on all the evidence.”
The changes come after the DWP told The Independent last month that it was changing PIP assessments to set all tender assessments for new claims at a minimum of three years, rising to five years at the next review if the claimant remains eligible.
This will increase the time between reviews in most cases; It is a move welcomed by campaigners who say reassessments could be ‘boring’. But the change does not cover claimants aged 24 and under, which disability charities described as “deeply concerning”.
