Family member awarded enhanced pip - AIBU?

Let me rephrase that. I find the OP's whole presentation of this situation to be highly unlikely.

There is no requirement to send medical or any other information with the claim form. Claimants list the health care professionals they are involved with on the application form. If they don’t submit their own medical evidence, assessors/DWP case managers won’t usually ask the claimant directly for it. They may in some cases, contact the people named on the form, or even the claimant themselves if they need further information to make the decision, but without supporting medical or other evidence, claimants are leaving themselves open to having the claim decided solely on a DWP assessors’ report.

In the event that the assessor or case manager contacts the healthcare professionals named on the application form, the claimant won’t necessarily be informed and won’t know unless they ask.

I find that highly unlikely.

Was it resolved ? I’ve seen a couple of cases where people have been called in for compliance interviews and the bank account details DWP have used were incorrect, or had been closed long before the claim was started. It’s things like that which make me nervous about wholesale AI monitoring.

I had a compliance interview last year because apparently I had £13k in savings. They explained they do random checks and had claimed I had £13k that I hadn't declared. (I have a unique name (anyone who spells their surname the same way is a relative) so they couldn't have mixed me up with someone else.

And this is the problem. Online banking makes all of these things much more convenient, as well as things like transferring money for birthdays, Christmas etc. I think common sense has to prevail here, but past experience tells me that it won’t and if this system is taken forward, at least initially, there will be a raft of claimants being hauled in to DWP offices to explain why they haven’t declared Aunty Jeans’ birthday money to little nephew Johnny !!

"It is worrying they will rely on AI.
I remember a reading about a mum getting her child tax credits stopped because she kept getting payments from a 'Martin McColl', which is a shop chain where she cashed it in. She had to prove that a shop chain was not a live in boyfriend.

And what would "unusual activity" mean in reality? Who decides?"

This sort of monitoring could prove difficult for people with regular but totally above-board transfers/payments.

I sometimes transfer money to a friend so they can grab shopping for me on their way over to visit, or if they're doing something like posting a parcel for me.
Sometimes that same friend will transfer money to me because they'll be visiting on a day that I'm having groceries delivered (I add what they need to my order and they transfer the cost of their items, saves them a trip to the supermarket), or they'll send money for me to order something off Amazon on their behalf (I have prime, saves on delivery costs).
Things like splitting costs for taxis/food can also lead to people sending money to each other.

If someone had to prove that a well-known convenience store chain wasn't a boyfriend, I'd imagine trying to prove that these sort of payments are innocent could be quite difficult!

I think the original intention was the monitoring of those on income related benefits, so that things like funds coming into accounts in addition to any benefits paid would be flagged up. The problem is that the Tory government were also planning to monitor state pensioners and those claiming universal disability benefits, so it’s difficult to see those as linked to benefit fraud.

The monitoring of pensioners’ accounts could be linked to HMRC l suppose, as DWP and HMRC do work together, but it’s difficult to see the intention behind the monitoring of disability benefit claimants because bank account activity won’t be an indicator of fraud as such. The DWP have gone on record as saying that AI will only look for anomalies and they have to abide by data protection and privacy legislation, so bank accounts won’t be routinely examined in detail unless there is a legitimate reason to suspect fraud.

l think it’s naive to think that the way we spend money can’t be monitored in this way. Linked in with other data that can be collected from things like loyalty cards and online purchasing, it could give a pretty accurate overall picture of spending patterns, which feeds in to how disabled people spend their benefit money.

It is worrying they will rely on AI.
I remember a reading about a mum getting her child tax credits stopped because she kept getting payments from a 'Martin McColl', which is a shop chain where she cashed it in. She had to prove that a shop chain was not a live in boyfriend.

And what would "unusual activity" mean in reality? Who decides?

@Rosscameasdoody

The PIP is the same, the BB criteria differ.

PIP is the same. Blue badge rules are separate and are not. Blue badge rules are devolved.

It’s a while since I retired as an outreach worker, but, although I can understand ADP rules in Scotland being different, PIP legislation is supposed to apply on the same terms in England and Wales. Really surprising.

Will be interesting to see what he has to say. One of the things they’re staying very tight lipped on is whether they will take forward the Tories’ plans to monitor the bank accounts of benefit claimants. This was supposed to be fully operational from 2025 with the relevant AI systems installed and with the appropriate legislation in place . It will compel the banks to monitor and report unusual activity on the accounts of benefit recipients to DWP. Labour were squealing ‘big brother’ when they were in opposition. Now they’ve seen the scale of the financial mess we’re in, I wonder if it will be quietly slipped in under the radar.

It's the same in Wales - you need 12 points on planning and following a journey for an automatic blue badge

Wow, thanks for that info. I’ve not actually dealt with ADP, as I’m in England. On bringing up the descriptors for both ADP and PIP they’re very similar, but I was really surprised to find you need the full twelve points to be entitled to a blue badge on MH grounds alone, with no further local authority assessment - so basically only the advanced rate counts for that, and yet the standard rate from eight points in the moving around descriptor is an automatic qualification. So they’re holding mental health/sensory and cogntive disability to a much higher standard.

@Rosscameasdoody

Sorry I mistyped its descriptor F

I did copy the correct text, just wrote the wrong letter

also, it is F for a BB entitlement in Scotland.

In my experience PIP was far easier to achieve than a blue badge though we very very obviously qualify for both.

The rules for a blue badge are different in Scotland. In Scotland, 10 points on the planning and following a journey activity is not one of the automatic qualifiers for a blue badge. 12 points is.

Descriptor E won’t qualify him the enhanced rate, as it only awards ten points and you need twelve for the enhanced rate. Descriptor E is the only descriptor which will automatically. qualify a claimant for a blue badge solely on the grounds of mental health/cognitive/sensory disabilities. Even if you qualifed with descriptor F for the full twelve points you would still have to undergo the local authority assessment for a blue badge.

Yep. It’s the same for PIP. I think people get confused with descriptor E because it’s the only way to qualify automatically for a blue badge if you are applying solely on the grounds of mental health or cognitive/sensory disability. It will qualify you for a blue badge without further assessment from the local authority, but only awards ten points for the mobility component and would not, on its’ own, qualify a claimant for the enhanced rate.

So child DLA at the moment. At some point after he turns 16 he will be migrated to PIP, and the eligibility conditions are very different from DLA, but when you receive the application form for PIP, you can ask DWP for any medical or other evidence already supplied for the DLA claim to be considered for PIP if it’s still relevant.

For conditions which are severe and not likely to improve in the long term, a claimant can receive an ‘open ended’ award. In practice this means around ten years, and these kinds of awards usually have ‘light touch’ reviews. This means that an assessor looks again at the claim and decides whether to contact healthcare providers or the claimant themselves. I’ve known claimants to not even be aware that a review has been carried out as there has been no need for them to be contacted, and the award has been renewed.

That is descriptor F, not E.

Descriptor E is 10 points so only standard rate mobility and is for being unable to undertake any journey because it would cause overwhelming psychological distress.

I think first you have to consider that your experience isn't everyone's. So while your standard mobility award is relevant to your situation with mental health, it isn't reflective of everyone who has mental health difficulties- these vary widely.

I have a DC who will be moving from child to adult disability (Scotland) very soon and fully expect them to be awarded the enhanced rate based on descriptor E: cannot follow the route of a familiar journey without another person, an assistance dog or an orientation aid

You just need to read the descriptors. They are very clear. DC gets high rate mobility because of severe LDs. They cannot leave the house alone at all and travel to place independently (not even a walk to the corner shop). Makes perfect sense to award high rate mobility if you completely depend on another human to set a foot in front of the house!

So the government are saying they want to claw back another 1.5 billion by cracking down on benefit fraud. Apparently the PM addressing this in his speech today. If it's not disability benefits that are being fraudulently claimed, it will be interesting to see what they will target. Do we think it's all UC/ Hb fraud?