(Minister of State for
Disabled People, Health and Work):...Personal
Independence Payment (PIP) is a modern, personalised benefit that
assesses people on needs not conditions. PIP is a fairer benefit
than the old DLA system as it takes a much wider look at the way
an individual’s health condition or disability impacts them on a
daily basis.
We are constantly looking at ways to continually to improve the
PIP service. In response to Paul Gray’s Second Independent Review
and the recent Work and Pensions Select Committee Report we
outlined numerous further improvements to the PIP service. This
included numerous measures to improve the clarity of our
communications products and increasing the level of clinical
coaching, feedback and support available to each assessor.
A key part of our efforts to improve the assessment process will
be making video recording of the PIP assessment a standard part
of the process. We will be piloting videoing the assessment with
a view to then rolling this out across Great Britain.
We have seen improvements in the overall quality of assessments
since 2015 but we recognise there is still more to do to deliver
the high quality of service those claiming PIP rightly expect. We
will continue to work closely with stakeholder groups and our
Assessment Providers to improve the quality of claimant
communications, assessments, decision making and the overall
claimant experience.
It is vital for claimants that we continue to have a stable
service. My Department therefore, intends to explore options to
extend the current contracts for approximately two years as this
will better allow for a stable transition to any new provision.
At the same time we will look to enable more providers to deliver
PIP by developing a DWP owned IT system. Throughout this period
we will continue to focus on improving the service and the
experience of claimants and offering the best value for money for
the taxpayer.
We remain committed to understanding how the benefit is working
and to continuous improvement in this space.
Furthermore we remain committed to working closely with claimants
and the organisations who represent them, and will continue to do
so.
The measures I have outlined today will improve the claimant
experience and we will continue to work with stakeholders to
identify and implement further improvements to ensure we are
delivering the high quality service claimants rightly expect and
deserve.
