The DWP has suggested replacing PIP with a catalogue or a shop in the Green Paper on personal independence payment (PIP) reform published yesterday. The department also asks people to choose whether it is more important that disabled people have money for food or money for medication.
Modernising Support for Independent Living: The Health and Disability Green Paper was published yesterday and is accompanied by an online consultation survey which the DWP say they want as many disabled people and other interested parties as possible to complete (see links at the end of this article).
Different type of assessment
In the first section of the consultation, readers are asked for their view on whether some claimants with medical evidence of specific health conditions should get PIP without any assessment at all.
Your opinion is also requested on whether only claimants with “evidence or a formal diagnosis by a medical expert” should be awarded PIP.
You are then asked to explain how to prevent the requirement for a formal diagnosis from a medical expert having an impact on the NHS - because it will undoubtedly mean a great deal more demands on consultants’ time.
Changes to eligibility
In the second section the DWP want to know whether the need for aids and appliances and for prompting should score PIP points.
They also question whether someone who get a lot of low scoring descriptors should be eligible for PIP at all.
And whether any PIP activities should be removed or any new ones added.
Finally, you are asked whether the current three month qualifying period and nine month forward test should be changed.
Meeting extra costs of disability
The consultation explains that PIP contributes towards the extra costs of disability. It asks people which are the most important needs that should addressed – suggesting that not all of them can be.
Respondents are asked to rank in importance from 1 to 10, such items as:
- Medications and medical products
- Additional food costs
- Additional energy and utility costs
- Additional housing costs
So, people really are being asked to decide if it is more important that disabled people get their medication, eat properly or heat their homes.
The same section asks people to list the benefits and disadvantages of moving to a new system for PIP claimants, which could be:
- A catalogue/shop scheme
- A voucher scheme
- A receipt based system
- One-off grants
The consultation then goes on to ask if there are people who, instead of cash, would benefit more from improved access to support or treatment, for example:
- respite care,
- mental health provision
- physiotherapy
This does raise the question as to whether benefits claimants would get different/better/faster access to things like NHS counselling and physiotherapy? Or whether they will be pushed onto short courses provided by private sector contractors hired by the DWP?
Passing PIP costs on to the NHS and local authorities
The final section asks some very bizarre questions about NHS and local authority provision, which most people would imagine the government would be better able to answer than the average member of the public. For example:
“Which of the following do local authorities or the NHS help with?”
- Equipment and aids
- Medical products
- Personal assistance (eg. help with household tasks)
- Health services
- Social care
The purpose of the questions, however, is clearly to sound out how much support there would be for pushing much of the cost of PIP onto the already desperately overstretched NHS and local councils.
What this Green Paper is really about
Modernising Support for Independent Living: The Health and Disability Green Paper is supposed to be a Green Paper setting out serious, carefully considered proposals for reform of PIP.
Instead it is a ragbag of random, cruel and foolish ideas thrown together by the DWP to serve the political needs of the Conservative Party, without any likelihood of any of them being acted upon.
The Green Paper is simply intended to make the current administration look tough on claimants whilst goading the opposition into speaking out against it, thereby supposedly making them look soft on welfare.
The fact that it is causing enormous distress to many disabled claimants and their carers, as is clear from the comments sections on this site and elsewhere, is of no concern to the DWP or the Conservative Party.
At Benefits and Work, we don’t believe that this Green Paper will ever form the basis of new legislation.
However, we do think it is important that readers who feel able to, do take part in the consultation.
It’s important that whoever forms the next government understands the strength of feeling against dismantling the disability benefits system and instead concentrates on dismantling the department that was cruel enough to publish these proposals.
Take part in the consultation
If you are unsure whether to take part in the consultation, now that an election has been announced, please read PIP changes and UC migration – how will the election affect them?
You can download Modernising Support for Independent Living: The Health and Disability Green Paper
You can take part in the online consultation, which closes on 22 July 2024. You are not asked to give your name or any other personal details.
Or you can email your response to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Please post a comment below if you take part in the consultation, to encourage others to do the same.
Blank consultation form for you to fill in
Many people have told us that they have found it difficult or impossible to complete the consultation because you cannot save the form and come back to it later. So we have published a text version of the form, with spaces for you to type in your answers. You can take as long as you like to do this and save it as often as you need.
When you have answered all the questions you can either email the document to the consultation email address or, if you prefer to stay anonymous, copy and paste your answers into the online form instead.
Our submission
A number of people have asked how we are responding to the consultation. We have published a copy of our answers to the consultation which you can download if you wish. We wouldn’t advise you to copy them, but they may help you decide how you want to answer.
We have tried to keep our answers brief as we don’t believe people should feel they have to write hugely detailed responses to what is, in our view a bad faith consultation.
Complaint about Question 18
We are particularly disgusted by Q18 and have sent a formal complaint to the consultation email address. We would encourage other people to complain if they are unhappy about this question.
Our complaint is worded as follows:
We wish to make a formal complaint about question 18 in the consultation related to “Modernising Support for Independent Living: The Health and Disability Green Paper”
The question asks:
“Which extra costs incurred by disabled people are the most important for a new scheme to address? Please rank the following options in your order of importance:”
Respondents are then required to rank 10 extra costs in order of importance.
If a respondent doesn’t wish to answer the question, the options will remain in their default order and that will be recorded as the respondent’s choices, even though that is absolutely not the case.
For many people, ourselves included, the entire premise of the question is inappropriate: asking people to decide whether, for example, medication, a specialised diet or energy to power medical equipment and provide additional warmth is more important. They are all vital to life and all of equal importance.
Even if people wished to choose, their ranking might vary at different times of the year or different stages in their condition.
In addition, even if respondents feel able to rank these items for themselves, how can they possibly make that choice on behalf of other disabled people with hugely different needs? Yet that is what the question requires.
We consider that this question should either be removed from the consultation or, at the very least, that there should be an option to decline to answer or to rank all options equally.
As it stands, this question is clearly rigged and has no place in a genuine consultation.
24.05.24 Please note: we have now had a response to our complaint as follows:
"We would like to clarify that if a respondent chooses not to answer question 18, no response is recorded for that respondent. The default order of the options will not be counted as a response if the question is left unanswered.
"Furthermore, if respondents wish to provide additional details regarding question 18, including if they feel that all options should be ranked equally, they are encouraged to highlight this in question 19. Question 19 is designed to allow respondents to elaborate on their views directly related to question 18."
We are a little dubious about this response, because if a respondent agreed with the DWP's chosen order and so did nothing, they would apparently be recorded as having not answered the question. And the DWP's response does not alter the fact that this is an extraordinarily inappropriate question in the first place.
