DWP is going ahead with plans for single assessment for different sickness/disability benefits

A cartoonist’s view of government sickness and disability assessments.

This is a bad move – and not just because it would merge the assessment systems of benefits that have different purposes.

It’s bad because the eligibility assessments for Employment and Support Allowance/Universal Credit and for Personal Independence Payment are simply not fit for purpose.

Those of us on the sharp end of the system have been saying this for years.

You can tell that the assessment system – including the way ministers have tampered with it to make it harder to appeal against wrong decisions – is bad simply by checking the huge number of appeals (once people are finally able to lodge them) that succeed.

But the Conservative government won’t listen.

The government has confirmed that it is pushing ahead with plans to test how it might be able to merge two disability benefit assessments into one, despite comments from a minister that appeared to suggest that no such plans were being discussed.

The plans were originally sketched out by work and pensions secretary Amber Rudd at a high-profile speech in April.

Rudd had said the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) would test introducing just one assessment to decide eligibility for both employment and support allowance (ESA) and personal independence payment (PIP).

Many disabled campaigners have warned against merging the assessments for ESA and PIP into one single assessment.

One disabled activist, Lisa Egan, has launched a parliamentary petition – which has nearly 7,000 signatures – calling on ministers to abandon their plans for a joint assessment because PIP and ESA are “different benefits with different purposes” and “have very different eligibility criteria”.

[She said:] “You would have thought they’d learned from universal credit that merging unrelated benefits doesn’t work.”

Source: DWP confirms single assessment plans, despite Tomlinson confusion

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No Comments

  1. Andy May 11, 2019 at 7:11 am - Reply

    Mike, It would have helped if you had included the link to the petition in your post! Otherwise thanks. ps As if the two separate assessments are not already a crock of sh*te!

  2. Anthony Turtle May 11, 2019 at 8:00 am - Reply

    This shows how thick these people really are. Imagine the case of, oh let’s use a certain, well known Lady, who regularly travels to Westminster to attend debates in the House of Lords. if she had to undergo a PIP assessment, they’d most probably say “I’m Sorry Lady Tanni, you can’t qualify for PIP as you don’t meet the criteria for ESA.

  3. MARK BEVIS May 11, 2019 at 8:40 am - Reply

    The eugenics rollout continues. The neo-liberal dream has to reach it’s climax by 2040 so that there only “useful” mouths left to feed.
    https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/society-will-collapse-by-2040-due-to-catastrophic-food-shortages-says-study-10336406.html

  4. Jeffrey Davies May 11, 2019 at 9:00 am - Reply

    Oh dear aktion t4 still rolling along with out much of a ado

  5. Mark Gibson May 11, 2019 at 10:41 am - Reply

    Have you a link to L Egan’s petition , please ?

  6. random bloke May 11, 2019 at 11:41 am - Reply

    Like a half arsed attempt to take baby steps towards merging the 2 benefits into a single means tested payment. Its bad when they announce anything, its worse when they flat out deny it (and announce it later anyway)

  7. Stu May 11, 2019 at 2:09 pm - Reply

    Two years ago I mentioned the subtle changes and similarities of the PIP and ESA forms to an assessor and I asked her “Are they going to merge them into one?”
    Her reply was “Watch this space”.

    This proves that it’s been planned for quite some time – despite all the denials.

  8. Michael McNulty May 11, 2019 at 4:09 pm - Reply

    I suspect the plan to roll two assessments into one is so when ATOS decides you don’t qualify for the higher component it’ll be so much easier to deny you the lower. If a leg injury you limp on isn’t bad enough to claim PIP, is it really bad enough to claim ESA?

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