Work and Pensions Committee: PIP, ESA trust deficit fails claimants and the public purse

In a report published today, Wednesday 14 February 2018, the Commons Work and Pensions Committee says public contract failures have led to a loss of trust that risks undermining the operation of major disability benefits.

Rt Hon Frank Field MP, Chair of the Committee, said:

“For the majority of claimants the assessments work adequately, but a pervasive lack of trust is undermining its entire operation. In turn, this is translating into untenable human costs to claimants and financial costs to the public purse. Government cannot, must not, fail to recognise the unprecedented response the Committee had to this inquiry, remarkable for the consistency and clarity of themes that emerged through thousands of individual accounts. No one should have any doubt the process needs urgent change.

“Recording the face-to-face assessment would go so far toward increasing transparency and restoring trust it beggars belief that this is not already a routine element of the process. The resistance from the Department to instituting this is equally bewildering. The cost of providing a record of the assessment is surely nothing compared to the benefits of restoring trust. Those benefits should include far fewer decisions going to appeal – and being overturned there - at considerable legal expense to taxpayers.

“The current contracts have not made the system fairer, have not made it more transparent and have not made it more efficient. They are up for review, and market interest appears limp. The existing contractors have consistently failed to meet basic performance standards but other companies are hardly scrambling over each other to take over. The Government should be prepared to take assessments in house.”

Efficient, consistent and objective?

The decision to contract out PIP and ESA assessments in the first instance was taken to introduce efficient, consistent and objective tests for benefit eligibility. The Committee says it is hard to see how any of these aims have been met. None of the providers has ever hit the quality performance targets set for them, and many claimants experience a great deal of anxiety and other deleterious health impacts over a process that is regarded as “opaque and unfriendly” throughout. Successive evidence-based reviews done for DWP show a pervasive culture of mistrust around PIP and ESA processes, with concern about the face-to-face assessment by a health professional at its core.

The Committee recommends DWP:

- Immediately institute recording of face to face assessment and provide a record and a copy of the assessors report to claimants

-  Take measures to improve understanding amongst health and social care professionals, and claimants, of what constitutes good evidence for PIP and ESA claims, and to ensure this evidence is used effectively by contractors;

- Set out how it will measure, monitor and report on the supply of evidence into PIP and ESA assessments

-Improve accessibility of the process at every stage: from the format and style of the application form, to information about home visits, to information about accessing  reconsideration and appeal  

 -Improve its use of contract “levers” to improve contractor performance   - and quality control via feedback through the claim process, including feedback from the appeal stage

No dog, can’t walk, or - How did you catch Down syndrome?

On Friday last week the Committee released a report compiling some of the thousands of individual claimants’ experiences of the PIP and ESA claims process - from application form to final appeal. The response to the inquiry was unprecedented - in sheer volume, by an order of magnitude - and composed of accounts that were shocking and moving, credible and consistent. A recurrent, core theme   - that claimants do not believe assessors can be trusted to record what took place during the assessment accurately - has implications far beyond the minority of claimants who directly experience poor decision making.

For the record 

The case for improving trust through implementing default audio recording of assessments has been strongly made: the Committee says DWP should implement this measure for both benefits now. In the longer term, the Department should look to provide video recording for all assessments.

DWP attests that the most common reason for decisions being overturned at Appeal is that new evidence has come to light. Organisations that support claimants say this is sometimes true, but the “overwhelming reason” for revised decisions is the full consideration of pre-existing evidence.  DWP’s own data shows that this “new evidence” is most often oral evidence provided by the claimant. In many cases this evidence could have been gathered at the initial assessment. The Department’s “lack of determination” in addressing this shows real weaknesses in its feedback to, and quality control over, contractors, which must be urgently addressed.

Overall costs to taxpayer

On Monday the Press Association published a Freedom of Information response giving a breakdown of some of the wider, systemic costs of wrong decisions. The Committee has previously published a table of the cost of benefits tribunal appeals to the Ministry of Justice – MoJ itself attributes the starkly increased costs to PIP appeals and their complexity - but was surprised to learn of the existence of the figures provided to PA, which it had previously requested. The Chair has written to  Secretary of State Esther McVey asking for an explanation of the discrepancy.

The definition of an “acceptable” report leaves ample room for reports riddled with errors and omissions. Despite this low bar all three contractors have failed to meet their key targets in any single period.  The PIP contracts set targets for contractors to deliver fewer than 3% "Unacceptable" reports. Neither PIP contractor has met the 3% target to date in any rolling three month period.

The Department’s use of financial penalties to try to bring reports up to standard has not had a consistent effect. Large sums of money have been paid to contractors despite quality targets having been universally missed. The taxpayer has spent hundreds of millions of pounds more checking and defending DWP decisions based on the contractors’ reports - not least in externalised costs in the Tribunal appeal system.

The Committee says DWP must consider whether the market is capable of delivering assessments at the required level, and of rebuilding claimant trust. If it cannot—as floundering market interest may suggest—the Department may conclude assessments are better delivered in house.