The DWP is to begin reassessing over 150,000 disability living allowance (DLA) claimants for personal independence payment (PIP) from September, the Independent has revealed. This will represent the final stage of a transfer process which began in 2013, but has been largely paused since 2020.
The affected claimants are people who are in receipt of DLA and were aged between 16 and 64 on 8 April 2013.
3,000 randomly selected DLA claimants will receive “invitations” to claim PIP in September 2026, to allow the DWP to test the process. After this the roll-out is likely to speed up, although no proposed date for completion has been published.
The interim Timms report called the PIP claims process “dehumanising” and “overly complex, repetitive and difficult to navigate, particularly for people whose needs fluctuate or are less visible.”
Yet, it is precisely this process that the remaining DLA claimants will be put through. Many will be claimants with the most severe conditions who have lifetime awards of DLA and will not have expected to be put through any further assessments.
Claimants who, because of their health condition, fail to respond to the PIP invitation correspondence or fail to take part in a reassessment if required, will face having their DLA stopped and no award of PIP made.
This means many thousands of claimants are likely to lose out. According to the DWP’s own figures, of those DLA claimants so far required to be reassessed for PIP:
- 40% had their award increased (the total monetary value of the PIP award is higher than the total monetary value of the DLA award)
- 13% had their award unchanged
- 21% had their award decreased
- 18% were disallowed due to failing the assessment
- 3% were disallowed for failing to attend the assessment
- 4% were disallowed due to failing to return the PIP2 form
If the current DLA reassessment claimants follow a similar pattern, then 10,500 vulnerable people will lose their benefit because they either fail to return the PIP2 form or fail to attend their assessment.
A further 27,000 will lose their benefit because they fail the PIP assessment.
And 31,500 will get an award of PIP, but it will be less money than they were getting on DLA.
The DWP has not said what safeguards it plans to put in place to protect vulnerable claimants.
Benefits and Work has begun publishing resources to support claimants going through the process:
