Disability benefits in England and Wales are “not fit for purpose” and the entire assessment system must be redrawn as part of a radical welfare overhaul, the government’s landmark review of personal independence payments will conclude, according to the Guardian.
The review, led by disability minister Stephen Timms, will find that the points-based system of assessment is effectively worthless because of the rising number of new conditions, particularly relating to mental health, that fluctuate considerably in severity. The review will also conclude that the assessment process is dehumanising for disabled people and actively hinders them from seeking work.
Why the review exists
The Timms review was commissioned in the aftermath of Keir Starmer’s government suffering a major Commons defeat last year, when 126 backbench Labour MPs rebelled against proposed £5bn cuts to disability and sickness benefits, forcing ministers to abandon the changes entirely. The review has been prepared in collaboration with disabled people and charities and is expected in two parts: an interim report this week, followed by full recommendations for how a new system should be designed this autumn.
The current system awards points based on the severity of a condition across categories including mobility and daily living activities such as washing and dressing. Campaigners have long argued that some assessment categories, such as points for navigating a route or planning a budget, were originally designed to capture learning disabilities but now also attempt to assess mental health conditions where a person’s ability to complete a task can vary significantly from day to day, a distinction the current points system was never built to reflect.
What the review will actually say
The review’s language is unusually direct for a government-commissioned document. “Our message is simple: PIP is not working. It is not working for the people that go through the process, nor for a government committed to supporting disabled people,” it states. “We are committed to making changes so that PIP can fulfil its purpose for disabled people and those with long-term conditions, both now and into the future. Doing so will require us to be radical in our thinking and bold in our recommendations for reform.”
The review will stress that public confidence in PIP is currently low and that the assessment process incentivises claimants to emphasise the worst aspects of their conditions in order to qualify, which itself becomes a barrier to seeking work. It will call for a new system that “adequately reflects the diverse reality and needs of disabled people today,” and for examination of how the assessment process could better respond to fluctuating conditions while also supporting people into work where they are able.
The scale of the review
The Timms review ran for ten weeks and received more than 38,000 submissions from members of the disabled community, the majority of whom reported negative experiences of the assessment process. It has two co-chairs and a 12-member steering group made up of people with disabilities or long-term health conditions. Crucially, the review’s terms of reference state its purpose is not to find spending cuts, though its steering committee has also been barred from proposing changes that would increase the overall projected welfare budget above current forecasts, a constraint that has left some disabled campaigners nervous the process could still end up producing savings by another route.
The numbers behind the pressure
PIP currently supports around 4 million adults, roughly double the number who received it in 2019, with about one in six current recipients also in work. Forecasts suggest annual spending could reach £43bn by the end of the decade, up from £19.5bn in 2013, a trajectory that has driven sustained political pressure to find savings, even as disability charities argue the underlying system fails claimants regardless of its cost.
Disability Rights UK has said too many people experience PIP assessments as “hostile, exhausting and disconnected from the reality of disabled people’s lives,” criticising both the system’s accuracy and its limited understanding of fluctuating conditions such as multiple sclerosis or mental illness. Typically, around two-thirds of claimants who challenge their assessment outcome at tribunal succeed in having the original decision overturned, a statistic frequently cited by campaigners as evidence the initial assessment process is unreliable.
Burnham’s approach
Andy Burnham, expected to be prime minister by the time the review’s full recommendations are published this autumn, is understood to be keen to address the rising numbers claiming PIP, particularly among younger people, where he has previously indicated he wants to move away from “crude cuts to benefit levels” in favour of a more structural approach built around education, technical training and council housing, aimed at reducing demand for benefits through investment rather than reducing the value of the benefits themselves. Louise Haigh, the former cabinet minister who played a key role in last year’s welfare rebellion and now serves as an influential adviser to Burnham, has argued reform must be genuinely compassionate while still addressing the ballooning welfare budget, a framing that suggests Burnham’s government may attempt a middle path between the disability charities’ calls for a fundamentally redesigned, more humane system and the fiscal pressure to contain long-term costs.
The Scotland comparison
Some campaigners point to Scotland’s adult disability payment, which has already replaced PIP north of the border, as a possible model for reform. The Scottish system broadly retains the same eligibility criteria but simplifies the application process, relying mainly on self-assessment with decisions typically based on medical evidence rather than routine face-to-face assessments, an approach that directly addresses the “dehumanising” criticism the Timms review is expected to level at the current English and Welsh system.
What happens next
The Department for Work and Pensions has declined to comment on the interim report ahead of its formal publication this week. The government has previously signalled it wants to abolish the separate work capability assessment and move toward a single combined assessment covering both PIP and the health-related component of universal credit, alongside an expansion of face-to-face assessments for claimants where appropriate.
Whether the eventual redesigned system, expected to be set out in full this autumn, succeeds in reconciling the review’s stated ambition for radical, compassionate reform with the government’s parallel commitment not to increase overall projected spending will be one of the defining early tests of the incoming Burnham government’s approach to welfare policy.
One response to “Disability benefits system “not fit for purpose”, landmark review to find”
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2019 seems to be the year claims for PIP started to increase exponentially, which also coincides with Covid 19.
Draw your own conclusions.
It’s also worth noting the amount of people 60 and over claiming PIP has risen rapidly too and inline with the rise in retirement age; that can’t be ignored, and neither should it be. Remove all those over 60 (women) and 65 (men) and the remaining number is the true figure.
The government are saving millions in benefits by raising retirement age, plus all those people are still paying tax and national insurance – it’s a double whammy for the government but a double hit to all those (especially women) missing out by having to wait years longer to draw their pensions
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