How to get ahead in ... PIP disability assessment.

Capita expects that 60% of assessments for Personal Independence Payment will take place in the claimant's home.

The outsourcing company Capita has launched its recruitment campaign to find health professionals to assess disabled people for the new personal independence payment (PIP) benefit. It is targeting physiotherapists, occupational therapists (OTs) and nurses, as well as doctors. Assessors must have at least two years' experience post qualifying, and will be paid £32,000.

Capita has already recruited 11 PIP disability assessors, who are currently being trained. The first 40 appointments will be full-time posts, with the remaining 130 made up of part-time contracts. Capita expects that 60% of assessments will take place in claimants' homes, with the rest being carried out in assessment centres.

The outsourcing organisation is confident that it will meet its recruitment target by the end of the year, and has pledged that in some parts of the business 40% of the workforce will be made up of people with a disability.

It is unlikely that 40% of the health professionals will fall into this category, although Capita says it is keen to get as close to that figure as possible. The head of Capita's PIP programme is Stephen Duckworth, who was left paralysed from the neck down after a rugby accident at the age of 21. He says: "I have had talks with the College of Physiotherapy who have put me in touch with their [professional] disability network. The occupational therapists don't have a similar network but we are attending their annual conference in June and will talk to them about the PIP process and the options."

Duckworth says the priority is to recruit assessors who have the right skills to do the job – but adds that personal experience of being disabled brings a perspective and understanding that cannot be taught on an undergraduate course. "The most important thing is their competency, to take a fair and impartial and diagnostic approach to the assessment process, and to be able to complete reports which will be left to the decision makers at the Department for Work and Pensions," he says.

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