Foodbank - 3 cars

I think this is how all genuinely disabled people feel. People don’t realise how brutal the PIP assessment system is unless they’ve engaged with it themselves. Public opinion seems to be that PIP is an easy benefit to get - all you have to do is limp in to the assessment or pretend ‘mental health’ and you’ll be handed money. Anyone who has ever been assessed knows from experience that that is just not the case.

PIP claimants are up against a brutal system that picks apart their condition and forces them to think about what they can’t do, rather than what they could do with an award of benefit. That’s never made sense to me, because PIP and DLA before it are benefits meant to support people to be able to be more independent. Hopefully the planned overhaul of the assessment process will take that more into account in the future.

One of the things that’s being looked at is the quality of the decisions. And that leads back to the assessors, so hopefully the emphasis will be on making sure that they are appropriately qualified and have experience in the field of disability, with specialties which can be used to assess specific disabilities and conditions - not just recruited, given a few days training and unleashed on disabled people as is happening now.

The review process is a bit simpler than the initial award process. You’ll get a form on which you’ll be asked to resubmit details of your condition and any changes since you were awarded benefit. If your condition has worsened you need to be clear about what aspect of your actual condition has deteriorated and how that affects your ability to carry out the specific activities assessed - be clear about the distinction between how you managed before the deterioration, and how you manage now, and give details of any extra help you need. For example if you managed an activity with an aid or appliance last time, and you now need help with it, you need to say so and say how and why you need the extra help.

If you can, try to provide as much new evidence as possible - consultant/hospital reports, GP records, prescription lists etc, as well as statements from anyone who knows you and your condition well. This could be friends or family who help you or professional carers involved with you. Don’t submit anything you’ve used in the initial application because it won’t be considered. If you need any help when the time comes keep hold of my user details and PM me - happy to help if I can.

I’m not surprised to hear that @Bloodyhrt. People running all over forums, Facebook etc with this absolute nonsense don’t care about the real life consquences of their words. It drives me nuts that Mumsnet of all places doesn’t get more stuck in. They tell us to ‘challenge in the thread’ but it’s bloody exhausting and the scary parts stick no matter how many times the poster is shown to be talking bollocks.

Dealing with the cold machine of PIP, OC, pensions, whatever, is frustrating and frightening enough without all this shite too. Take a breath, hang in there, listen to reputable sources, get advice from people who can demonstrate they actually know what they’re talking about.

Please don't be scared. Make sure you have all the documentation and evidence well in place for when your review comes. If you've got worse, the information from your practitioners should reflect that.

I’m bloody scared. I’m for review in 2026 and I’m worse than I was. I can’t risk being left with no car and no way to pay for my support because an assessor has a gut feeling that I’m defrauding the system.

She wouldn’t get the chance. Assessment reports have come in for a lot of scrutiny in recent years because so many claimants are successful at tribunal, having been initially denied benefit. Reports are subject to scrutiny by auditors before they’re sent to DWP decision makers. Anything that’s not evidence based is sent back to be revised. And decision makers are ultimately responsible for making an accurate benefit decision - if they’re not happy with information contained in the reports they can ask for clarification before making a decision rather than risk the claimant going to appeal.

DWP are currently reviewing their processes for PIP with a ‘right first time’ directive - there was a consultation with disabled people which I think closed in June. They were invited to give their opinion on how the process can be made fairer and more transparent, to achieve better quality decisions and avoid expensive appeals wherever possible.

I’ve accompanied claimants to appeal hearings and pretty much every aspect of the assessors report and the decision based on it is picked apart and scrutinised in detail by experts in the field of medicine, social care and the application of disability law. With the attitude OP has, she wouldn’t last five minutes as an assessor. And after nearly fifteen years of engagement with the PIP process as a disability outreach worker I can pretty much guarantee that the updated processes won’t be leaving anything to the gut feeling of any assessor about ‘piss takers’.

Nope. The way you present your findings is controlled and there are even set phrases to be used on the reports. Nothing is left to anyone’s gut feeling - everything is evidence based. You don’t have free rein to decide who is taking the piss and who isn’t and build that into the report. You assess, you allot points for each category according to the medical findings of how the claimants’ disability affects each of the activities assessed. Then you pass the report on to the decision maker. If the claimant meets the criteria, they get benefit. If they don’t they don’t.

If a report goes to the decision maker and they think there’s something amiss it gets banged back for auditing. No decision maker is going to base a benefit decision on unsound evidence because they will bear some responsibility for the claimant going to expensive appeal and probably winning - tribunals will pick assessors’ reports apart and scrutinise them, and if they’re not evidence based they’re set aside.

Left to people like you the benefit bill would sky rocket even more, because the people you assess would inevitably receive unfair decisions and have no alternative but to go to appeal. Have you any idea of how expensive that is ? That’s why the DWP is currently reviewing their systems and there’s a consultation out for disabled people to engage with the design of a better, fairer system which will eventually be cheaper because the focus is on a ‘right first time’ approach to benefit decisions so there will be less need for the appeals process. If they get it right it will save a fortune. And you can bet your bippy nothing will be left to the whim of people like you who think it’s right to deny someone benefit they’re entitled to because you don’t think they’re worthy.

So you’re going to commit fraud.

I haven't seen anything in your posts that comes across as humour. Just bigoted vitriol towards vulnerable people.

So, to summarise. OP is/was a food bank volunteer (Trussell Trust), a youth worker and a PIP assessor. She is/was better than all her colleagues at these places because none of them have the skills to spot a wrong un like what she has (9 out of 10 faking).

The 3 (or two) car lady wasn’t actually using a food bank, that was a different lady on the Sky News piece. I’ve lost track of who had the £300 handbag (definitely not a fake, OP has a special gift for that too). Shopkeepers - delete ethnicity - are stocking their shops from the food banks. Maybe working for Trading Standards would be a good next step?

Do you know what a joke is? It’s supposed to make people laugh, how many people do you think are laughing 🤔?

Do you know what a joke is?

If the criteria change, then all new applications will be assessed against that. It's still not the choice of the individual assessor.

Rubbish. We do remember faces and addresses and are often engaged with the person in other supportive ways. They are known to us in some capacity. Most of the time they're only at the food bank because we've referred them there in the first place. It's not that easy.

What a crock of shit. I do actually collect food bank parcels for clients who are desperate. They get a bag of food which does help but is hardly full of luxuries.
i (or another professional) has to refer them and there is a limit of 3 times in 6 months.
i see the people who use them and they are not turning up in luxury cars & there’s definitely not shop keepers buying stuff to resell. You have never been anywhere near a food bank op!

And they can appeal, and if you haven't been fair and have too many issues with your processing, you lose your job.

Life has a way of humbling those with your judgemental attitude OP. I've seen it so many times.

Agree. Do you think OP thinks telling a genuine PIP claimant from a piss taker is the same as discerning a cheap handbag from an expensive one ?

You really don’t get it do you - despite several people clarifying how it works. A PIP assessor has no control over whether a claimant gets benefit or not. All they do is assess the claimant and provide reports to the decision makers at DWP. And the reports are based on objective eligibility rules which are applied in exactly the same way to all claimants to ensure consistency. The conclusions are evidence-based on whether or not the actual effects of the disability match the criteria for eligibility. The assessors use their medical experience and any medical evidence the claimant supplies themselves. There is no room for judgement based on whether they think the claimant is taking the piss. And nor should there be.

You sure? You've made some very wrong assumptions before...