What is PIP?
Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is replacing Disability
Living Allowance (DLA) for people of working age. Like DLA, PIP
is non-means-tested and is intended to help with the extra costs
arising from ill health or disability. It has two
components: a mobility component, based on an individual’s
ability to get around; and a “daily living” component, based on
ability to carry out other key activities necessary to be able to
participate in daily life. Each component has two rates.
PIP assessment
PIP was introduced for new claims from April 2013, and DWP
expects that all existing working age DLA claimants will have
been reassessed for PIP by 2019-20. The PIP assessment is
intended to provide “a more holistic assessment of the impact of
a health condition on an individual’s ability to participate in
everyday life.” It covers sensory impairments, developmental
needs, cognitive impairments and mental conditions, as well as
physical disabilities. PIP is intended to target support
more closely on those most in need, and significantly fewer
people will qualify for PIP than would have qualified for
DLA. The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that
savings from PIP will however be considerably less than the 20%
savings originally expected.
Announcement on 23 February 2017
On 23 February 2017, DWP laid before Parliament regulations to
amend the PIP eligibility criteria from 16 March to “clarify the
drafting and reverse the effect” of two recent Upper Tribunal
judgments, which had interpreted the Schedule setting out the
assessment criteria “in ways which the Government did not
intend.” The first judgment relates to the PIP daily living
activity 3 (“managing therapy or monitoring a health condition”);
while the second judgment relates to mobility activity 1
(“planning and following journeys”), specifically the assessment
scores for those unable to undertake journeys due to
psychological distress. An Equality Analysis accompanying
the regulations estimates that around 3,000 claimants could
ultimately be affected by reversing the effect of the judgment
relating to daily living activity 3, while reversing the effect
of the mobility activity 1 judgment could affect 336,500
claimants (with 161,500 no longer entitled to any mobility
component). The latter changes could affect people
with a wide range of conditions including learning disability,
autism, schizophrenia, anxiety conditions, social phobias and
early dementia.
£3.7 billion savings
The Government states that failure to reverse the effect of the
judgments would have led to “substantial unplanned increases to
public expenditure” totalling £3.7 billion cumulatively between
2016-17 and 2021-22, and that the changes are necessary “to
restore the original aim of [PIP], making sure that we are giving
support to those who need it most.”
Responses
Disability organisations have called on the Government not to
proceed with the changes. Some have questioned how the changes
fit with the Government’s stated commitment to “parity of esteem”
between physical and mental health issues. Opposition
parties are also seeking to annul the regulations (which are
subject to the negative procedure).
The wider context
The regulations come less than 12 months since the Government
abandoned controversial changes to the rules on how the PIP
assessment takes account of the use of "aids and appliances",
which were expected to save an additional £1.3 billion a year by
2019-20. Following the resignation of as Secretary of
State for Work and Pensions on 18 March 2016, the Government
announced that it would not be proceeding with these changes to
PIP, would not be seeking alternative offsetting savings, and was
not seeking further savings from the welfare budget.
