PIP information - Updated 11/02/2016

Latest information on PIP, including descriptors can be found on Disability Rights UK What are the rules for PIP?

The DWP has now upgraded it's website with the latest guides on PIP, and they can be accessed
at PIP Information for Advisers

The statement on PIP and subsequent debate in the House of Commons on 13 December 2012
can be found on the 'They Work For You.com website HERE

For some unknown reason I cannot post in Benefits News, so reproduce my intended post below :

The Hardest Hit, a coalition of over 90 disabled people’s organisations and disability charities, including the MS Society, RNIB and Mencap, has condemned the Government’s decision to press ahead with a £2 billion cut to vital support provided by DLA/PIP. Today’s statement by the Government on the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) regulations is “crushingly bad news”.

Steve Winyard, co-chair of the Hardest Hit coalition, said:

“Just a couple of weeks before Christmas, the Government has delivered crushingly bad news for over 600,000 disabled people. Today’s announcement of the PIP regulations confirms that they will lose all help with the extra living costs they face due to their impairment*. A further sizeable group will receive significantly reduced financial support in order to deliver the £2 billion saving that the Treasury is seeking from the abolition of DLA**. This is a cruel and unwanted early Christmas “present” for disabled people already hardest hit by the Government’s austerity programme.”

“Back in 2010 the Prime Minister promised to protect the most vulnerable while seeking to reduce the deficit. However this has been totally forgotten as disabled people experience deep cuts to their benefits, services and rights. Last week it was the reduction in the value of Employment and Support Allowance, today it is entitlement to DLA/PIP.”

Losing DLA will not only impact on living standards, it will also make it much harder for disabled people to return to work. As Nicky a Hardest Hit campaigner comments:

“I’ll lose lower rate care for sure. That’s £20.55 a week as it stands. It’ll make things tight. I will struggle, but the kicker will come when I attempt to go back to work because without my DLA, I won’t qualify for the Disabled Person’s Tax Credit so won’t be able to afford to do part time work to ease me back in. I’ll need to find a full time job paying at 18k a year despite a massive gap in my CV, continuing health problems and starting a new career after my old one wasn’t at all being ill friendly. So I can’t afford to work part time, I can’t do straight back to full time…looks like I’m going to be stuck on ESA forever. All for the sake of that £20.55 per week support going, I’m thrown on the scrapheap, never to pay tax or NI again.”

The Government makes great play of the fact that they consulted widely on these changes. But as Kaliya Franklin of the Spartacus collective points out:

“True co-production means working in partnership with disabled people and both parties agreeing upon all details, not asking disabled people what they think and then only listening to answers the government like. So for Ministers to claim that PIP has been co-produced is at best misleading and at worse untrue. Many thousands of disabled people along with charities and Disabled People User-Led Organisation’s responded to the government’s consultation on DLA – PIP; the ‘Spartacus Report’ which was written and produced by disabled people themselves comprehensively disproved the government’s claims to have consulted. Asking for responses but ignoring the answers is neither listening nor co-producing. The Spartacus Report resulted in defeat for the government in multiple votes in the House of Lords, which were railroaded by the government using financial privilege to get its own way. It is deeply disappointing to see DWP Minister’s once again claiming to have worked with disabled people, when all that means is that disabled people were asked and any disagreement with the government was ignored.”

Hardest Hit rejects the £2 billion cut and rejects the idea that there are more than 600,000 disabled people who do not need their DLA. In “The Tipping Point” report, published by the Hardest Hit coalition in October, we pointed to a number of alternative ways to make the £2 billion saving. The Government should not be trying to reduce the deficit on the backs of disabled people.

For more information contact Jenna Litchfield, Senior Press Officer, MS Society. Phone: 020 8438 0782 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

*By October 2018 if Government continued with DLA, 2.182m disabled people of working age would be receiving some help with either daily living or mobility. With PIP the number is 1.575m. So, overall the PIP caseload in May 2018 will be around 608,000 lower than the DLA caseload would have been without the introduction of PIP.

** The DWP estimates that by May 2018 510,000 re-assessed DLA recipients will see a reduction in their award.

Notes:

The Hardest Hit coalition brings together the Disability Benefits Consortium (DBC) and the UK Disabled People’s Council (UKDPC).

The draft PIP (Transitional Provisional Regulations) 2012 have now been posted on the DWP website, and can be read HERE

Personal Independence Payment Update

The Government has recently announced some new information regarding the
design and delivery of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) which is the
benefit replacing Disability Living Allowance (DLA) for people aged 16-64 .

Instead of carrying out a high level assessment strategy which would have
meant existing claimants being assessed from this October, they will be
undertaking a significantly slower reassessment profile. The Government hope
that this will enable them to take the time to learn from the early
introduction of PIP. The peak period of reassessments will now fall around
two years later than originally planned. The revised delivery timetable is as follows:

8 April 2013
From 8 April 2013 new claims to PIP will be taken in the controlled start
area in the North West and part of the North East of England.

From June 2013
New claims to PIP will be taken in all remaining areas of Great Britain.


From October 2013
Reassessment for PIP of fixed period DLA awards coming up for renewal, young
people turning 16 and where DLA claimants with indefinite awards report a
change in their condition.

From October 2015
All remaining claimants in receipt of a DLA award will be invited to make a
claim for PIP. DWP will randomly select those recipients of DLA in receipt
of an indefinite award or a fixed term award and notify them about what they
need to do to claim PIP. They will prioritise recipients who have turned 65
after 8 April 2013, when PIP was first introduced.

PIP Rates
The PIP rates have now been announced. The enhanced rates of PIP will be the
same as the highest rates of DLA. The standard rate of the daily living
component will be the same as the middle rate of DLA care and standard
mobility will be the same as lower mobility in DLA.
The exact weekly rates of PIP are;

Daily Living Enhanced Rate = £79.15
Daily Living Standard Rate = £53.00
Mobility Enhanced Rate = £55.25
Mobility Standard Rate = £21.00

These rates are provisional until the legislative process is completed in
early 2013. PIP will continue to be a non-means tested, non-taxable cash
benefit which will be uprated in line with the Consumer Price Index.

For full details of the revised projections visit www.dwp.gov.uk/pip

Note the above is from draft legislation and has not yet been made as a UK Statutory Instrument.

On Monday 21 January the Work and Pensions Select Committee took evidence from Esther McVey MP, for the first time since her appointment as the DWP Minister for Disabled People.  This will be a one-off session on Personal Independence Payment (PIP), the Government's replacement for working-age Disability Living Allowance, which is set to be phased in from April 2013.

The session will follow-up the Committee's February 2012 report on PIP in the light of recently published consultation responses and the Social Security (Personal Independence Payment) Regulations 2012, which set out the eligibility thresholds and assessment criteria for the new benefit.
Full details on Parliament Website HERE