on the PIP?

Scenery: large, dark, wood panelled room with faded but expensive furry wallpaper (could be a corridor of power or a workhouse)

Enter stage left: haggered welfare rights worker (made up to look like cute child)

Actor: “can I have some more welfare reform please?”

Interesting thoughts.

This is a copy of what I wrote for the recent consultation (finishing in 6 days, I think) on P.I.P.

“Advice from an independent healthcare professional should be an important part of the new process” (P.4) The problems already being experienced by those undergoing medicals for ESA means this should sound alarm bells. In addition, I and other advisers have noticed that DLA decisions are being referred increasingly often to healthcare professionals at the Department for Work and Pensions. I have concerns about both the accuracy and impartiality of their reports.

Section 1: “The need to reform Disability Living Allowance” (P.5-10)
-    (Paragraph 1.) Why does lack of information among the public mean DLA has to be changed? The solution would surely be more information?
-  “resources… focused on those with the greatest need” (paragraph 3.) Those in the greatest need should not be neglected, who can argue with that? But why should those in less, but still significant, need be neglected? What are those people going to do?
-  “lowest rate care component… estimated… 140,000 people; today there are 880,000 people in receipt” (paragraph 14.) The fact that far more people get it than envisaged is being taken as an unarguable reason why the benefit should be changed. Perhaps the people who are getting it do need and deserve it? What about suggesting that those who estimated how many people would claim it were mistaken?
-  (Paragraphs 16. and 17.) As per comment on paragraph 1. above, is the answer to the complexity of DLA not merely more information? How will PIP be any simpler? There seems no evidence to suggest it will be.
-  (Paragraph 18.) Constantly re-checking awards, as well as having medicals for every claim will cost a huge amount (especially if the decisions are as prone to being changed on appeal as those based on ESA medicals). The costs of administering PIP will mean still less money available for actually paying the benefit.
-  (Paragraph 20.) There is nothing in the information about PIP to suggest it will be any simpler than DLA.

Section 2: “The new benefit: our proposals” (P.11-21)
-  (Paragraph 2.) The government should not continue to pretend that they are both cutting costs and interested in helping people by removing disability benefits from them.
-  (Paragraph 4.) As mentioned before, it is hard to see how the PIP assessment will differ significantly from DLA. A greater reliance on “embedded” (my term) healthcare professionals is unlikely to make the process fairer (as found with ESA).
-  (Paragraph 5.) As asked above, will claimants be ordered to go to certain specialists, and forced to undergo certain treatments in order to keep receiving benefits?
-  (Paragraphs 12. and 13.) Paragraph 12. states that the PIP assessment will be very different, while paragraph 13. suggests it will be more or less the same. As to the extra costs of disability: is DLA not also a compensation, a means of allowing disabled people a better quality of life since, in many cases, their income will be well below average?
-  “views from the 1990s” (Paragraph 14.) Has Britain changed so much since the 1990s that now a person who can use a manual wheelchair is no more disadvantaged and incurs no more costs as a result of their disability than someone who can walk normally? I think not.
-  (Paragraph 21.) This will mean that people in care homes on very low incomes may find they can hardly ever get outdoors. Could higher-rate mobility be means-tested for those in care homes, perhaps? Those who pay for their care are those most likely not to need the extra money that higher-rate mobility provides, so this seems very unfair.
-  (Paragraph 29.) How could a DLA-type benefit work if it focuses on what someone can do rather than can’t do?
-  (Paragraph 36.) This confirms that claimants may well be compelled to attend consultations about their condition (and undergo treatment ?) as part of the benefit? Who will decide what the claimant should do? Embedded doctors? What if what the embedded doctor says will be good for the claimant contradicts what a GP or specialist says will be good. What if a GP says that the suggested treatment may actually harm the claimant, or cost a lot of money? Will the claimant have benefit stopped and an appeal will hinge on the claimant getting medical opinions contradicting a specific idea of one doctor?
-  (Paragraph 37.) Lest I should be accused of having only negative things to say, I think a DLA one-off grant is a good idea.
-  (Paragraph 40.) If a child is permanently resident in a home, then there is clearly a case for not paying benefit for them. But normally, a child is only in a school for 30-35 hours per week out of 168, and this must be taken into account.

Section 3: “Delivering the new benefit” (P.22-26)
-  Are all claims to be decided by embedded doctors, like for ESA?
-  “what, if any, extra support may be needed for disabled people in Universal Credit” (Paragraph 5.) Are all premiums to be removed? A very significant effect on disabled people’s incomes, if so.

Conclusion
In all, it seems that PIP is going to be more or less the same as DLA, except lowest-rate care will be taken away, and higher-rate mobility will be taken from anyone who can use a manual wheelchair.

-  The withdrawal of lowest-rate care will make an enormous difference to the incomes of 800,000 people (loss of the £18.95 per week and also in many cases the loss of disability premiums on means-tested benefits). Section 3., paragraph 4. claims to have taken this into account, but it w

On the off chance that anyone’s made it to the bottom of my rant on PIP, here’s the rest of it:

-  The withdrawal of lowest-rate care will make an enormous difference to the incomes of 800,000 people (loss of the £18.95 per week and also in many cases the loss of disability premiums on means-tested benefits). Section 3., paragraph 4. claims to have taken this into account, but it would appear that it has not taken it into account at all for lowest-rate care recipients, and the government is clearly looking at reducing the level (possibly to nothing) of passporting benefits and premiums even for others who do get PIP.
-  The replacement of “mobilizing” for walking” in the test for higher-rate mobility will mean most of those currently in receipt of higher-rate mobility will lose it, causing a very large drop in income and loss of passporting to eg. free bus passes, blue badges, motability vehicles etc. This is not fair, as using a wheelchair causes significantly more difficulties and incurs far more costs than walking.
-  PIP is likely to be just as complex as DLA, and more costly to administer, because of the likely large number of appeals and the costs of medical examinations with embedded doctors.
-  PIP, it seems clear, is more a cost-cutting exercise than a reform to help disabled people. By significantly reducing disabled people’s incomes, it is likely to work against the integration of disabled people in everyday life.
-  DLA is currently not an impediment to entering work. If it is, it is only so because of lack of proper information in the public domain. PIP would be no different.