A wrong disability benefit decision is overturned every minute of every working day
Philippa Day: Capita paid her family an out-of-court settlement after a court heard her mental illness had been “exacerbated” by the way her benefits were processed.
The Department for Work and Pensions is riddled with incompetence with a wrong benefits decision being overturned every single minute of every working day, according to new analysis.
Readers of This Site may find nothing surprising in the revelation from disability charity Scope about assessment results for Personal Independent Payment.
It’s doubtful that it is incompetence, of course. There is a wealth of information that the DWP deliberately approves wrong decisions by benefits assessors from outsourcing firms like Capita.
Capita, of course, has just agreed to pay off the family of a disabled, mentally-ill woman who died of a drugs overdose after being messed about by the company and the DWP over a period of months.
So why does the DWP – and its outsourced assessment firms – get away with it? Simple: they have cleverly managed to avoid a court making a decision that they are guilty of an offence due to their activities.
Most recently, Capita made an out-of-court settlement to avoid a judgement on the death of Philippa Day.
According to Disability Rights UK,
Thousands have to fight every month to get the main disability benefit Personal Independence Payment.
Scope has demanded urgent action from Government after publishing the analysis which shows that on average, more than 12,000 Disabled people are successfully overturning wrong Personal Independence Payment (PIP) decisions every month.
Disabled people can appeal if their PIP claim has been turned down or if they are awarded less financial support than they had expected.
Scope found that between July 2019 and June 2021, on average there have been 12,579 successful appeals (including mandatory reconsiderations and tribunals) every month – equivalent to 600 every day. Since July 2019 and June 2021, there have been a total of 301,899 successful appeals. 70% of PIP tribunals are successful.
Figures also show the Government spent £120 million fighting disability benefit claims for PIP and Employment Support Allowance (ESA) between 2017 and 2019.
Scope has launched a new petition calling on the government to make sure disabled people get the right benefit decision, first time.
The petition calls for disabled people to have the right to request an appropriate assessor who properly understands a claimant’s condition.
Will it get anywhere? Doubtful.
Therese Coffey – and all the Tory ministers before her, going back to 2010 and Iain Duncan Smith – enjoy killing off vulnerable people too much.
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Untill we get decent people’s in then nothing will change NS nearly 11 yes of Tory Christianity helping the disabled mentally ill and sick even the unemployed all get the helping hand to pop ones cloggs yet 11yrs on we still getting no help just that nudge to end it rtu ids has done a good job on its people’s who need to claim aktion t4 rolling along with out much of a ado.