Personal Independence Payment, the benefit launched last year to replace Disability Living Allowance, has already run into trouble.
Like Universal Credit, the new benefit combining payments to working-age claimants currently made through Jobseekers’ Allowance, Income Support and Working Tax Credit, PIP is being piloted in Northern England before being extended to the rest of country.
It is supposed to be in place by the end of next year although it now seems almost certain that the deadline will be missed.
Despite its limited geographical introduction, there is already a large backlog of claims to PIP with many disabled people waiting months for a decision and some terminally ill claimants dying before their application is processed. In a critical report by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee the chair Margaret Hodge describes the introduction of PIP as “a fiasco”.
Unlike other benefits claimed by disabled people such as Employment and Support Allowance and Income Support, DLA isn’t based on your National Insurance Contributions or means-tested against other income or savings. It is non-taxable and can be claimed by those in work, reflecting the fact that it is designed to cover some of the extra costs associated with personal care (paying someone to help with cooking, cleaning, washing etc.) and mobility (taxis, adapting vehicles for wheelchair use etc.) rather than to replace wages when you are sick or unemployed.
The Department for Work and Pensions has outsourced the medical assessment of claimants for PIP to two private companies, Atos and Capita, each of whom has — to say the least — a patchy record when it comes to delivering public services under contracts awarded to it by the Government (Atos recently exited its contract to carry out work capability assessments for ESA a year early after delays and criticisms almost identical to those now being seen with PIP).
If the rate of refused claims by Atos in the transition from Incapacity Benefit to ESA is replicated with PIP, it has been estimated that only forty per cent of those currently receiving DLA will be getting it in two years time.
PCS, the union which represents civil servants in the Department for Work and Pensions as well as staff in private contractors such as Atos and Capita has said these contracts should be terminated as soon as possible and the assessment work should be brought back in-house.
“It is a scandalous waste of taxpayers’ money for these failing contractors to continue to get paid for their shockingly poor performance while PIP customers have to wait months for their claim to be dealt with.”
