Disturbing article by Nikki Fox, the BBC Disability correspondent, on the BBC News app.
So far 31,200 currently receiving the higher rate DLA have been reassessed under the migration to PIP, but only 17,300 have been awarded the higher mobility rate under PIP. The result being that around 14,000 people have had vehicles taken away.
Thank you IDS for such a caring approach. I am not personally affected but it must be horrible to be on the receiving end of such a callous approach.
Alun
Ba*tard IDS.
Just wondering ā¦has migrating to PIP meant any allowance has been increased at all ?
Keep seeing posts suggesting that moving from DLA to PIP often means allowances decrease or are cancelled completely. Anyone had a different experience or even had their existing allowance(s) matched after migration ?
As the condition deteriorates, most people will need more financial assistance rather than ālessā - so this possible negative development makes no sense to me at all ā¦unless people havenāt been assessed correctly in the first place ??
(Still on DLA for now, and apprehensive about moving to PIP in due course !!)
Thanks,
Dom
Hello
under DLA I was on high rate mobility and nil rate care. Under PIP I am on enhanced rate Mobility and Standard rate daily living. Granted my condition has got worse but I think the decision was a fair assessment.
I found the whole process okay.
I wonder how many of the people have conditions which have got better and how many have got worse. I think for many the problem is the distance you can walk has changed from 50 metres to 20 metres. But we must remember this is safely, reliable & repeatably.
Hope this helps.
paul
The problem is that this is nothing to do with our condition or our abilities. When the consultation took place it was agreed between the a DWP and charities that a fair distance for walking was 50m. When the legislation passed DWP changed it to 20m and, since the majority of appeals are upheld, are now looking at it again. They are also looking at the criteria for aids and appliances as the award and appeal rates are too high. So, if IDS or any of his similarly odious ar*****es tell us that this is nothing to do with ideology or money then maybe we should be a tad sceptical. Would love to meet IDS face to face and show him that although my legs are knackered there is nothing wrong with my punch.
Gary
I started claiming PIP and never started off on DLA and like Russo get standard living allowance and the higher rate mobility. Do not bother with the car and also have a blue badge which I have to re-apply for in October but seeing as I am now in a wheelchair I have no concerns about getting it.
Polly x
I have had MS since 1998 Im 44 now. I went for my pip test and have lost my car and my personal car been lowered to the low.
I sometimes can spend 12 weeks in bed I use a scooter sometimes a wheelchair. I can walk but not far. People that have MS and there family no that it can change from day to day. The man if I can call him that new nothing about MS didnāt have any records from doctor and my MS consultant.
I thinking of taking it to tribunal but do not no if I can take the stress and scared of ending up in hospital.
My lovely wife thought i was having a nerves brake down last weekend and that was just looking for a car.
any advise would be apprenticed
Shaun
Ditto Pollyās situation for me as well ā¦ i donāt have a Mobtability car, i had hand controls fitted to an automatic that i bought myself
Jemma
The problem is not that people do or do not qualify for PIP. The question is related to the huge numbers of people who were on high rate DLA for mobility and have now lost it due to the change in distance from 50metres to 20metres. And of course, that means many people will lose their motability vehicles not to mention their automatic right to a blue badge.
The next big reduction in numbers qualifying for PIP is likely to come following the DWPs āconsultationā on aids and appliances. If people currently qualify for either middle or high rate DLA for care or high rate PIP for care and qualify solely because they struggle through life, attempting to retain some independence, using only such aids rather than physical assistance from another person, ie. a carer, they are likely to lose their entitlement to PIP for care.
The consultation was fatally flawed; if you accepted the fallacious statements the DWP had made and argued on their terms only, chances are the āconsultationā will end up with one of their rotten alternatives, meaning that once again many thousands of people will lose entitlement.
Once again, I urge people who are claiming PIP either as a transition from DLA or as a new claim, to seek out expert help in completing the claim form. And if you are refused PIP, ask for a reconsideration (again seeking out some help), then if necessary, appeal the decision. Try for welfare rights help from the CAB, Age Concern, your local council (District, Borough, Metropolitan or County). Failing all of these, or any other welfare rights service local to you, (or indeed as a first step) join http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/ I know some people have a problem with a private company making money from claimants, but honestly, there is no better place to look for guidance in claiming and appealing bad decisions made by the DWP for ESA or PIP. I have no axe to grind here, but I genuinely think that itās worth spending Ā£20 for expert, up to date, accurate advice. And if the people running the site and writing the guidance didnāt get paid for their work, it would not exist.
Best of luck to all, as always
Sue
Just to answer the question Dom posed (I know itās not the purpose of the thread Sue), I was on DLA getting High rate mobility and medium rate care. I moved to PIP a the end of last year and was granted Enhanced mobility and Enhanced daily living. So it is possible for it to happen although, in my case, I probably could have moved up to high rate care of DLA had I bothered to contact the DLA as my condition worsened.
But this is where I think the question and he original purpose of this thread come together. I think so much is down to the assessments and the people doing them. You have to remember that not all claimants for DLA had to go through an assessment (I went through the process twice and didnāt have any assessments) whereas, as far as Iām aware, all PIP claimants have to go through one.
And this is where the problem lies, there appears to be no consistency. I know someone who went through the training to become an assessor and the pressure put on them to weigh the assessments against the claimant was intense. She quit after just a few weeks.
I can only think that I was very lucky to have an assessor who was extremely helpful nd understanding.
Motabilitys gonna be out of pocket then! Maybe theyll make a stand.
pollx
I have been following all the advice in this forum and downloaded the info from Benefits & Work to prepare for my PIP assessment. Iām not changing from DLA. The thing I canāt grasp is the the bit that Sue talks about which is the aids and appliances I just donāt understand how this is being used against us I seem to be incapable of absorbing this. Iāve got my assessment in a couple of weeks so I need to try and grasp it even though this shouldnāt be affecting the outcome as it is only in consultation at the moment. However, Iām cynical and suspect it already is.
Hi fishgoose, I will be transferring from DLA to pip at some pointā¦not had my summons yet!
I also found the new āaids and appliancesā rather confusing.
I asked the question on here and was told I would probably get less points if I used any.
But digging and reading further, my belief is thus,
If someone uses aids and appliances by themselves, it could reduce their points.
If someone needs the help of a carer in order to use these items, then they would get higher points.
Does anyone think Iāve got it right please?
Thanks
Pollx
The aids and appliances consultation is, being a tad cynical here, designed to allow the DWP to cut the PIP bill a little. You see when they did away with DLA and replaced it with PIP, they intended to save some money. But theyāve not saved enough. So they looked at the awards that are being granted and thought hmmmm thereās a whole bunch of people who only qualify for the care element by amassing 8 or 12 points (8 for standard rate and 12 for enhanced rate) simply by scoring 2 points within 4 or 6 categories each time because they use mobility aids or appliances to help them. For example,
Section one is all about preparing food. You have one score, ie the highest one that applies to you
If you need no assistance you score 0 points
if you use an aid or appliance score 2 points
If you can use a microwave score 2 points
If you need prompting score 2 points
If you need assistance score 4 points
if you cannot prepare food score 8 points
Then there are a whole load of other sections, each is scored in a similar way. The problem as the DWP see it is that a lot of people score 2 points in each section because they use aids to help them with each activity (eating, washing, dressing etc). The way the DWP see it is that a lot of disability aids are either one time only purchases or are very low cost. For example, with the preparing food one, you might use a perching stool, non slip mats or boards, kettle tipper etc etc. So if you use aids but have no actual physical people caring for you, your disability expenses are a lot lower than a person who has to have help from carers. Yet you can accumulate enough points to qualify for the enhanced rate of PIP just like someone who has to have carers.
So they came up with a load of options for consideration. These included:
leave it as it is now
make it so that someone who uses aids and appliances only cannot qualify for the care component at all
cut the points from 2 to 1 for those who need aids and appliances only
make it a one off payment for people who need aids and appliances only
set a different, lower rate for care component for people who use aids and appliances only
to change the definition of what counts as a mobility aid for the purposes of PIP
So, we are now past the point of being able to comment on this consultation document. The biggest problem as I saw it was the huge complexity of the document. There was duplication of wording. There were a number of things that the DWP were stating as facts that were not defined clearly and therefore had not in fact proven. The questions that were being asked were not necessarily answerable. Therefore, it was too large a job for someone like me to do. I tried but it was something that required hours and hours of work and whilst I have the kind of background to be able to understand it, I also suffer fatigue and have a certain amount of cognitive difficulty. I therefore volunteered to be a respondent for the MSS campaign team, just as many other people did.
As I am cynical and have seen what the DWP are capable of doing, I suspect that the āconsultationā will result in them making changes to the way PIP is assessed for people who use aids and appliances to help them in the home. It will not be a positive change and will not result in more people getting the benefit. An additional āsuggestionā within each of the options is that alongside the change to the calculation will be the withdrawal of automatic passporting to other benefits or benefits premia (this could have an effect on any tax credits, housing or council tax benefits or on someone else receiving carers allowance because of your entitlement) and removal of the exemption to the benefits cap.
I hope this makes sense to you, and helps to explain what this consultation thing is all about. And letās not forget that whilst benefit claimants are facing a Ā£0 increase this April due to the automatic increase being tied to Septembers RPI, a whole load of DWP Analysts and consultants are making plenty of money to implement these swingeing changes. Still as long as someone ābenefitsā eh??
Please donāt forget, I am not an expert of PIP or any other benefit these days. I am just another benefit claimant who has the ability to read this junk and make some sense of it. It is all my interpretation of the DWP consultation document.
Sue
Phew Sue! I dunno how you managed to fathom all this! I am gonna tryā¦tryā¦not to let it consume me!
Luv pollx
Yes. Youāre right. You just said it with a whole load less words than I did.
Sue x
Thank you Poll and Sue. That has really helped. My brain is useless now at reading stuff like that so I really appreciate someone else doing it and explaining it! The whole thing is ridiculous. X
Sue,
Thank you for taking time to complete your impressive critique of the dastardly efforts of the DWP to reduce its annual outgoings, regardless of the human consequences. If youāre interested, please see my post under the topic
New consultation on PIP descriptors. Please read.
The migration from DLA to PIP has given the DWP the golden opportunity to reassess the awards to all the current DLA beneficiaries. The Nikki Fox piece outlines this very well, and the reassessment process is only in its infancy. Then, to add to the mix, we have the consultation over the PIP standard living allowance. It all forms part of this obsession with shaving Ā£12 billion off the annual DWP budget.
With no credible opposition forthcoming, we are likely to face years of government by the Tory party. We will look back over the David Cameron years as a period of relative compassion, once George Osborne has won the leadership contest, and is able to drive through further, as yet unimaginable, cuts.
I am generally a cheerful sort of bloke, but I do worry about democracy under this government. At present, only the unelected House of Lords is able to offer any hope of sensible curbs to their excesses.
Best wishes
Alun
The earlier comments on the PIP consultation document are indeed interesting. A link to that thread is here: New consultation on PIP descriptors. Please read. - Everyday living - MS Society UK | Forum
in particular, the comments made by Alun Dr Geoff and Boblatina are very helpful for people trying to make sense of this otherwise somewhat nonsensical excuse for āconsultationā.
Sue
[quote=āSsssueā]
The earlier comments on the PIP consultation document are indeed interesting. A link to that thread is here: New consultation on PIP descriptors. Please read. - Everyday living - MS Society UK | Forum
in particular, the comments made by Alun Dr Geoff and Boblatina are very helpful for people trying to make sense of this otherwise somewhat nonsensical excuse for āconsultationā.
Sue
[/quote] Hats off 2 all you folks, youāve made so much more sence out of that lot, thankx,
my poor little head is going rest now!
julien,