DWP finally announces some funding for PIP workshops, but allows just five weeks to complete process

The government has finally agreed to provide some funding for a few disabled people’s organisations to engage with its personal independence payment (PIP) review, but has given them only about a month to organise events and submit their evidence.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) wants organisations across the country to organise their own workshops to hear from disabled people about their views on PIP, as part of the Timms Review.

But until this week it appeared that disabled people’s organisations and other groups would have to fund their own workshops, with Disability Wales writing to disability minister Sir Stephen Timms (pictured) to question the lack of funding.

Responding to the concerns last week, DWP gave no hint that it would be providing funding for the “workshop in a box” initiative, stating only that it was “reviewing the letter and will respond in due course”.

But this week, DWP announced that it will provide funding for a small number of organisations and told Disability News Service (DNS) that the review’s steering group always intended to do so and was not reacting to concerns raised by disabled people’s organisations.

DWP has yet to explain why it failed to make this clear last week.

Instead, it said it had “approached a small number of organisations to offer financial support to deliver accessible workshops with local groups and communities in their networks”.

It said it was focusing on those it believed were able to “reach individuals and groups who are less likely to engage with government research or public consultations, including those from marginalised or underrepresented communities”.

Disability Wales was informed on Monday that it would receive funding for a workshop.

Disability Rights UK (DR UK) said that DPO Forum England, which represents disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) across England, had repeatedly asked Sir Stephen to pay DPOs for co-produced work.

A DR UK spokesperson said: “We have argued constantly that disabled people’s expertise must be recognised [and] that disabled people’s organisations need to be at the centre of the co-production process for the PIP review.

“We told him that, as under-resourced organisations, we would need funding for that work.

“We were very disappointed to see the initial ‘workshop in a box’ proposal that did not seem to consider what we’ve been asking for repeatedly: to pay DPOs for their expertise and labour.”

DWP also announced this week that organisations hosting PIP review workshops would have to organise and hold their workshops and submit their evidence by 17 July.

It told DNS it was giving organisers as much time as possible to take part, while ensuring that their evidence could be considered ahead of the review’s final report.

It said the review’s steering group was trying to use funding to achieve a spread of representation across conditions and geography, and to hear from organisations working with disabled people who are most at risk of being missed by its other evidence-gathering approaches.

DWP’s workshop resources include downloadable material to help organisations across the UK run their own sessions.

The review’s call for evidence closed on 28 May and produced more than 38,000 responses.

Sharon Brennan, co-chair of the review, said: “It is vital to the success of the review that we hear from as many people as possible about their thoughts on PIP, especially those whose voices are less heard such as those from marginalised communities or who… do not feel comfortable engaging with government-led consultations.

“We hope this new engagement method allows people to have conversations that matter with the organisations that they most trust so their lived experiences can shape the outcomes of our review.”