A government crackdown on PIP handouts means thousands of people could lose their benefits in future following an assessment.
The ‘one size fits all’ approach to Personal Independents Payments could be reviewed in future, Rishi Sunak announced with a Green Paper aimed at changing how the payouts of £737 a month to disabled and unwell people could operate in future.
The crackdown is part of a push to curb benefits fraud and trim money off the welfare budget and those on the benefit have until July to reply to a consultation which could change PIP permanently.
But currently there are no hard and fast lists of conditions which automatically qualify someone to get the money. Instead, there is an assessment based on 11 points which measures someone’s ability to carry out ‘daily living’ tasks.
Instead of automatically providing payments for specific health conditions such as epilepsy, Parkinson’s or Motor Neurone Disease, the DWP assesses a claimant’s need for PIP against a list of ’11 daily tasks’.
Successful claimants can receive up to £434 a month if they pass 11 daily living checks, which can be at a standard or enhanced level.
The criteria used by the DWP are as follows:
Daily living part:
- preparing food
- eating and drinking
- managing your medicines or treatments
- washing and bathing
- using the toilet
- dressing and undressing
- reading
- managing your money
- socialising and being around other people
- talking, listening and understanding
Currently, the Standard rate for daily living is £68.10 per week, while the enhanced rate is £101.75 per week.
The Standard rate for mobility is £26.90 per week, and the Enhanced rate for mobility is £71.00 per week.
In total, a successful claimant of PIP can receive up to £9,580 annually.
There are also three mobility assessment criteria too.
You might get the mobility part of PIP if you need help with:
- working out a route and following it
- physically moving around
- leaving your home
Addressing potential changes in future, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: “It’s clear that our disability benefits system isn’t working in the way it was intended, and we’re determined to reform it to ensure it’s sustainable for the future, so we can continue delivering support to those who genuinely need it most. Today’s Green Paper marks the next chapter of our welfare reforms and is part of our plan to make the benefits system fairer to the taxpayer, better targeted to individual needs and harder to exploit by those who are trying to game the system.”
