1,000 new PIP claims per day?

[flashbac]

Is this true? (From someone who is naturally cynical of government info.)

If it is, is there something else behind the statistic? Is it because people have to reapply or something like that?

This is from the government website:

"Monthly PIP awards have more than doubled since the pandemic, rising from 13,000 to 34,000 - a rate of around 1,000 new claims per day, or the population of Leicester every year."

I find the statistic unbelievable.

I think the number of new awards is probably dwarfed by the people who would qualify and should apply who for whatever reason don't. Some goes for many benefits like carers allowance.

Of course the number of PIP claimants has gone up. People are aware of friends/neighbours/family who have put in and been granted PIP on spurious claims and think fuck it, I’ll invent something too or go along and cry about my poor mental health and get a bit of what everything else is getting.

Yes I know that everyone on MN apparently has a completely genuine claim for themselves and their kid but in RL, you are all kidding yourselves if you don’t think people are abusing it.

probably not because anyone claiming would have to have recourse to public funds either by birth or immigration status.

@Lioncub2020 dla is VERY different to pip, they are much less stricter. So dont compare the two.

Round and round we go with the same old tired rhetoric with no facts to back up assertions.

I think PIP is so rigorous that there really aren't as many people abusing it as you think. There are so many genuine claimants that have to jump through hoops if they can get it at all, that the notion that people can just say "yeah i'm ill, i'll have it ta" is a bit laughable.

What is more likely, is that people think "he doesn't deserve it because his disability isn't bed ridden paralysis" without acknowledging that it's for the additional costs of that persons individual disability. Which may or may not be obvious to onlookers.

I don’t know about it being easy.

the process is an initial phone call to establish address/detail etc and then a 50 page form and you are expected to submit medical evidence.

if you have a carer or parent or partner to do it for you maybe it’s not too onerous but I submitted over 100 pages of medical evidence which was cross referenced by the questions. It took me a month to do.

then there is a phone assessment (I believe some are face to face but mine was by phone) where they try to clarify any issues the medical evidence hasn’t covered and also ask about lifestyle generally. I got so fatigued in mine (1.5 hours) that by the end I was talking very slowly and having trouble putting words together.

I was in an accident ten years ago and got 12 points for mobility.

I haven’t claimed in the past because I was still able to work and didn’t need to money but now I can’t work and I do need it.

Thank you for the advice and clarification. It’s been a long time since I had to make a benefits claim and I find these new benefits names confusing, never mind the benefits process itself.

All the names and acronyms are very confusing. All the recent changes make it even more confusing.

New-style ESA is based on your NI contributions so please do check on that as you have to have paid in within a certain window to be eligible. It used to be 2 years, but I'm not sure if it's still the same so worth checking.

And you can still be employed - if your SSP runs out for example you can claim. You don't have to be out of work. Some people work part time as well, it's a very very low threshold but could be helpful if going back on a very minimal phased return for example.

Not really if 25% of the population are disabled (that's the usual figure from many bits of research.). That's only 5.5% of population, so a good 20% of disabled people don't claim anything.

I’ve no idea how people manage. I nearly lost my job waiting for an operation as I had so much sickness
im immunocompromised with a host of health issues that leave me shattered but I’m too well for PIP, too unwell to work more than 40hrs

Still not an out of work benefit.

I'd love to see these things broken down by age. How many people are going onto sickness benefits when a generation ago they'd have been retired?

Keeping thousands of older people in work isn't exactly helping young people get on the career ladder either.
So many entry level jobs just don't exist any more, like Office Juniors who spent hours filing stuff and delivering stuff to other offices.
Even students leaving unis are struggling to get proper jobs.

Have heard a suggestion that wholesale acceptance of gender ideology has a darker reason than just inclusivity. 97.5% of trans identified teen girls are autistic, abused, mentally ill. Puberty blockers and cross sex hormones often sterilise the victim.

'Showing off' 🙄

@mumble12it is vigorous - sometimes. My own DH who claims PIP - he is registered blind and has very limited mobility and a brain injury had to jump through every hoop possible to be awarded PIP. He spent the money largely on taxis to and from work as he could no longer drive.

However, a lady I know claims PIP for fibromyalgia, claims to be in too much pain to work in her old shop job but is open about having put on an Oscar winning performance to the PIP assessor (her words) and continues to work as a cleaner cash in hand and goes to the gym every day and lifts weights.

As always in this fucking country, the greedy and fraudulent will ruin it for the genuine people.

But nobody wants to hear it on MN.

Always the same defensive responses. I wonder why!

The government publish regular stats on PIP and you can also access the data using their website to split it by claim and by age as well.

There’s a link to their database (called stat xplore) at the end of section 4 of their stats release

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/personal-independence-payment-statistics-to-april-2024/personal-independence-payment-official-statistics-to-april-2024

you need to register but it is free

Under 1% of claimants do so fraudulently, so of course there are some.

Many MNers have opinions about disability/autism/PIP based on ignorance, which is always very clear from their posts, so defensiveness in light of the frequent “my neighbour’s cousin’s dog’s groomer’s sister claims pip and is lying about it” is understandable. Propaganda against disabled people of all ages, particularly ND conditions, is rife, and very upsetting if you are one of those frequently criticised and accused of lying.

The criteria must have changed a lot, surely, from the DLA days. My late DH was still only on middle rate DLA when he was quadriplegic (literally bed ridden paralysis). He only at last got higher rate when he also had complex breathing issues on top. That was years ago, like, New Labour time, though.

The majority of us all know an example of the type of person you mentioned. That is why the majority of us think the system is abused. Lockdown created a group of people for whom it became acceptable to take handouts that they wouldn't have done before, once in that mindset they then hunt out others. The entitled-to.com culture we have is damaging.

There are lots of sarcastic answers coming to my mind but i will take this question at its face value.
They are British or have unlimited leave to remain so settled here. People who came on a work visa can’t claim benefits.

Do You think there’s anything unusual about the number of claimants increasing by 50% in 5 years, and that number of new claimants continuing to accelerate?

Is that something worth exploring - and is there a question as to the affordability of such a scheme if people are claiming in it in far higher numbers than previously?

Those saying under 1% of claims are fraudulent! How do you know? They’re fraudulent therefore we don’t know. People pretend to be sick and given that no one from the PIP office can shadow every single claimant 24/7, they get away with it. What a dumb comment.

Please report them

I don't know anyone defrauding the benefits system. If I did I'd report them.

Only people you know extremely closely would give you the ins and outs of their finances and be comfortable enough to declare that they were breaking the law to you surely.

UC has a reported fraud rate of around 8%. That won't be found by people ringing them up and saying "by the way i'm claiming fraudulently"