PIP fails to provide support disabled people need, and assessments cause harm and distress, survey shows

Disabled people who receive personal independence payment (PIP) overwhelmingly say that the disability benefit does not cover all their additional disability-related costs, according to a new survey.

The results of the survey – co-designed with disabled people – show that only 16 per cent of those who took part said PIP covered all their additional costs, while nearly a quarter (24 per cent) said it covered “very little or basically none” of their extra costs.

Respondents said PIP failed to cover disability-related costs such as personal assistance, aids, adaptations, and transport.

The survey results came in the week that other research found the public were strongly opposed to cuts to spending on disability benefits, exposing politicians and the mainstream media that have repeatedly called for cuts (see separate stories).

Sir Stephen Timms is due to publish the findings of his PIP review this autumn and he released draft recommendations last night (see separate story), with political opponents and media figures clamouring for cuts.

The new PIP survey was created by Disability Rights UK (DR UK), the user-led Commission on Social Security and the poverty charity Toynbee Hall, with about 2,000 disabled people from England, Northern Ireland and Wales completing the survey.

DR UK yesterday (Wednesday) hosted a parliamentary drop-in session to brief MPs on the results.

The survey findings also produced significant criticism of the PIP assessment process.

On a 10-point scale – where 10 represents an assessment process that allows the respondent to “completely explain” the impact of their condition – 54 per cent chose a score of four or lower.

Even for respondents who had been awarded both the enhanced mobility and daily living components of PIP, 48 per cent reported a score of four or lower.

And nearly half of those surveyed (48 per cent) found the assessment process to be somewhat or very “hostile”.

One disabled respondent said: “The most humiliating experience of my life. Ninety minutes of being made to feel like a fraud.

“Assessor repeatedly tried to trip me up at a time when I was feeling suicidal. I sobbed the entire time.”

Dr Rosa Morris, a project worker on the Commission on Social Security, said the results confirm that PIP “has the capacity to work well but in practice it falls down in offering the support needed to truly cover the extra costs disabled people face”.

And she said they also show that the PIP assessment process causes disabled people “unnecessary harm and distress, is often inaccessible for claimants and is lacking in personalised or holistic support”.

She said: “The media and politicians continue to whip up a narrative that PIP is unsustainable, seeking to label people as ‘scammers’ and ‘fakers’ when the reality borne out in the figures is that fraud is negligible.”

She also pointed to this week’s British Social Attitudes Survey report, which found only seven per cent of those questioned supported cuts to disability benefits (see separate stories).

Morris said: “In the absence of both transparency of its process and true co-production, the Timms Review must set out changes to PIP that restore people’s trust, give people the financial support they need and offer them support throughout what has become a challenging, and often distressing, assessment process.

“Our proposal for an additional costs disability payment serves as an example for what a co-produced alternative to PIP could look like.

“We would recommend everyone read our proposal as an example of what a system rooted in trust and dignity could look like.”

Neil Duncan-Jordan, the Labour MP who sponsored yesterday’s parliamentary event, said: “These findings – based on the views of disabled people – make for some very difficult reading.

“It’s not just that the assessment process can be complicated and challenging – it’s that the whole system actually works against disabled people trying to live as fulfilling a life as they can.

“Individuals are scared to say they go swimming in case they are made to feel that they don’t [deserve] their PIP.

“Our welfare state needs to be enabling and that’s what the Timms Review will need to address.

“This can’t be about cutting benefits. It has to be about supporting disabled people to live as full a life as they can and to make whatever contribution they are able.”

DR UK has also published early findings from further research, this time with Durham University, on disabled people’s fears that they could see their benefits cut or removed if they are found to have engaged in physical activity.

Survey findings for this report found that 80 per cent of disabled people who receive disability benefits are worried about being physically active due to fear of losing those benefits, while more than a quarter (28 per cent) said they had had disability benefits removed or declined because they had been physically active.

The report also found that 84 per cent of those surveyed said that completing applications for disability benefits had had a negative impact on their mental health.