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
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
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!
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.
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
Oh dear aktion t4 still rolling along with out much of a ado
Have you a link to L Egan’s petition , please ?
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/244329
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)
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.
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?