A government review of the personal independence payment (Pip) disability benefit, ordered after ministers were forced to abandon proposed £5bn cuts to the payment last year, is due to be published this week. This is what we know so far.
What is the Timms review and why is it happening now?
The interim report of the Timms review, which was established to overhaul Pip, is due to be released this week ahead of a full report expected in the autumn. The review by Stephen Timms, the minister for social security and disability, was “co-produced” with disabled people. Its stated aim was to make Pip “fair and fit for the future”. A public consultation received 38,000 responses.
Pip is paid to about 3.9 million people in England and Wales. It is assessed in two parts, daily living and mobility, with individual awards ranging from £30.30 to £194.60 a week. It is not means-tested or an unemployment benefit: the aim is to help recipients with the extra costs they face because of their disability, such as food, heating and transport costs.
The review is a direct consequence of last year’s disability cuts fiasco, in which 126 backbench Labour MPs rebelled and overturned plans to cut £5bn a year from disability and sickness benefits. The proposed changes would have removed Pip from hundreds of thousands of people with long-term physical or mental health conditions.
Why is Pip controversial?
Campaigners have long called for changes to the complex, often stressful and inconsistent way in which the benefit system assesses and re-assesses claims for Pip. Many distrust the system, regarding it as broken and lacking fairness and respect for claimants. Many people do not get the right level of financial support they need. In a handful of cases, Pip system failings have had tragic consequences for vulnerable claimants.
Disability Rights UK said too many people experience assessments as “hostile, exhausting and disconnected from the reality of disabled people’s lives”. The charity has attacked the system’s accuracy and its lack of understanding of fluctuating conditions like MS or mental illness. Typically, two-thirds of claimants who challenge the outcome of their assessments at tribunal have that decision overturned.
But the soaring cost of Pip has also generated debate. The number of Pip awards has grown rapidly in recent years – particularly among young adults. Current forecasts suggest £43bn a year will be spent on the benefit by the end of the decade, compared to £19.5bn in 2013. Successive governments – including the current one – and rightwing media have considered this unsustainable and proposed ways to rein in Pip spending.
The Timms review’s terms of reference say the point is not to find ways to cut Pip spending in future – but it also says there is no scope for the review to introduce changes that would increase spending above current projections. Despite this, there is nervousness among some disabled people that a review that began in the aftermath of an attempt to find disability benefit cuts will ultimately seek to make savings.
What could the review mean for recipients of Pip?
The Guardian exclusively revealed in advance of the review that it will conclude Pip “is not working”, is “not fit for purpose” and was in need of bold and radical reform.
Some campaigners look for a model of reform in Scotland, where the adult disability payment has replaced Pip. The ADP system broadly keeps the same eligibility criteria but aims to simplify the application, which is mainly self-assessed, with decisions usually based on medical evidence rather than routine face-to-face meetings.
