The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has rejected an online petition calling for a full review into how Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is delivered, focusing in particular on the role independent assessors play in the application process.
The ‘Full review of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) application process’ petition has been posted on the petitions-parliament website and received more than 11,310 signatures of support. The official response from DWP was triggered after the petition passed the 10,000 threshold - at 100,000 signatures, the petition will be considered for debate in Parliament.
DWP explained that changes it has recently made to the decision process in order to “make the right decision at the earliest opportunity so that claimants do not have to appeal” has resulted in a greater proportion of decisions being changed at Mandatory Reconsideration, without going to a tribunal.
In the response, DWP said: “We are committed to ensuring individuals applying for health and disability benefits receive high quality, robust and accurate assessments and decisions on their claim. We work continuously to improve the quality of service.
“It has always been our aim to make the right decision at the earliest opportunity so that claimants do not have to appeal.
“Consequently, and learning from tribunal decisions, we have introduced a new approach to decision making at both the initial decision and the Mandatory Reconsideration stage, giving Decision Makers additional time to proactively contact claimants where they think additional evidence may support a claim.”
DWP continued: “The new approach to decision making has resulted in a greater proportion of decisions being changed at Mandatory Reconsideration, which in turn has contributed to a reduction in the proportion of decisions resulting in an appeal lodgement.
“Only 7% of initial decisions made in 2020-21 have seen an appeal lodged against them, compared to 9% in 2019-20, and 10% in the three years previous. In addition, since PIP was introduced 4.5 million initial decisions following an assessment have been made up to March 2022; 9% have been appealed and 4% have been overturned at a tribunal hearing.”
Last year DWP published Shaping Future Support: The Health and Disability Green Paper. This explored how the welfare system can better meet the needs of disabled people and those with health conditions to build a system that enables people to live independently and move into work where possible - the White Paper will be published later this year.
PIP contracted providers
Specifically addressing the points in the petition regarding assessment providers, DWP said: “Both PIP assessment providers, Capita and Independent Assessment Services (IAS), strive to provide excellent service to claimants and are held to account for their performance.
“They have consistently exceeded their customer satisfaction targets of 90% for PIP, achieving collectively 96.6% until the end of February 2022.”
The DWP also said that as part of the Functional Health Assessment process, the “feasibility of a paper- based assessment will always be considered in the first instance for all cases”.
GPs, any named specialist medical professionals or the claimant themselves can be contacted by the Health Professional if they need more information to complete a paper-based review.
DWP added: “Health Professionals are expected to consider all available evidence when formulating their advice.”
DWP said that all evidence must:
- be interpreted and evaluated using medical reasoning
- consider the circumstances of the case
- consider the expected impact on the claimant’s daily living and/or mobility
DWP said that providers are working continuously to drive improvements in assessment services. It explained: “They have introduced new management processes to drive performance across their services, including enhanced assessment report quality checks to improve the quality of advice the DWP receives.”
Provider performance is measured across a range of service level agreements setting out the department's expectations for service delivery.
These include:
DWP also said that PIP Case Managers receive extensive training and are supported and coached by an experienced mentor before passing rigorous Line Manager checks to ensure they have reached the high standard that it expects.
It said; “As a learning organisation, the Department is continually supporting Case Managers to develop their understanding of the functional needs arising from complex health conditions and disabilities to ensure that robust decisions are reached weighting all of the claimant’s evidence, health professional advice and all supporting evidence.”
The petition will remain open until February 15, 2023 and can be viewed online along with the full DWP response here.