Family member awarded enhanced pip - AIBU?

[Orangecrocs]

My family member has just been awarded enhanced pip in both living and mobility components.
Shes told me that she’s twisted the truth during the assessment and told the assessor that she has lots of pain and can’t really walk at all, but she walks all the time as I see her out and about - we live in a hilly area. I know people who are in a wheelchair and struggle to get enhanced rate - so I really don’t understand how she’s managed this.
I know people will say mind your own business but she’s told me she’s actually lied to them.

It also seems, going by the anecdotes on this thread, that there's no need to monitor people's bank accounts. Seeing as people "playing the system" seem to be very open about it - telling everyone they know, from extended family to neighbours to casual acquaintances. Almost crying out to be caught (which actually suggests serious mental health issues).

This is obviously morally wrong. And I don't blame you for thinking badly of her. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to tell on her, but I'd be feeling like I respected her a lot less.
I am always terrified of being in trouble with the DWP even though I know I've always been honest. I don't know how some people can live with the guilt and worry you'll be found out!
It is really horrible. And why tell people you lied? Aren't they worried it could be used against them? Or do they think they're the local genius?

Oh fabulous another benefits bashing thread based on anecdote and ramping up anti disabled sentiment. If you are sure someone is defrauding the system then report them. PIP is difficult to claim with stringent eligibility criteria and assessments, in my experience robust medical evidence is required. Just depressing to see the same old "stories" offered up on here. Disabled people have enough to deal with without people making stuff up just to have a go.

Agree, report them, you can do it anonymously.
www.report-benefit-fraud.service.gov.uk/details
But don't put it on Mumsnet - it really upsets people who receive and are fully entitled to these benefits.

I work in welfare rights and do a PIP application most weeks, sometimes two. All my clients have mental health issues and are under the care of a community mental health team, many of them have had recent mental health admission. A fair proportion of them have physical health issues as well, quite a few are neurodivergent.

Around 40% of my applications are turned down initially; around a third of those are awarded at mandatory reconsideration stage. The rest go before a tribunal.

My success rate at appeals is 100%.

If it was that easy to get, I wouldn't have to do so many bloody appeals.

Eh, is not rather the years of austerity and raging incompetence of the last government?

You're right that austerity is the problem @SpringYay

I've posted about this on other threads.

• Well-founded and well-run public services with no postcode lottery of access or quality.

• Supportive benefits system

• Improved child support system

• More social housing

• Job, education, and training opportunities

• Good public transport

All the above mean people get timely and effective support - so then many people have less need for support and need it for shorter periods of time.

Austerity is cruel - and also bad economics.

But the truth is fairly obvious. Austerity has failed. Recent estimates from the New Economics Foundation (NEF) - using numbers produced by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) – confirm this (Stirling, 2019).

They find that the cumulative effect of austerity has been to shrink the economy by £100bn today compared to what it would have been without the cuts: that is worth around £3,600 per family in 2019/20 alone.

And, then there is the staggering social cost of the cuts.

Crime is up. Life expectancy has stopped rising but inequalities are growing again. Over a million people a year are now using foodbanks.

Homelessness has more than doubled. And poverty has started to rise once again: one-in-three children and around one in five pensioners have now dropped below the poverty line (DWP, 2019).

In the deluge of statistics, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that these are real people, families and communities, who rely on government support to get by, and who have been devastated by austerity.

https://www.ippr.org/articles/austerity-there-is-an-alternative-and-the-uk-can-afford-to-deliver-it

Austerity has actually caused more people to be too unwell or disabled to work (and need PIP to be able work).

Of course some people would be too unwell or disabled to work regardless of austerity (and deserve support), but many wouldn't have been - if they'd received timely and effective help.

Yep, this. I was a disability outreach worker and my experience was pretty much identical. Curiously, when government talk about the out of control sickness and disability benefits budget they omit to mention the added cost of tribunals, or that the system of assessment and award is utterly unfit for purpose. If Starmer wants the disability benefits bill brought under control the best way to achieve it is via wholesale reform of the way these benefits are assessed, so that the decision is right first time. I attended several tribunals and more than once the DWP were criticised for allowing cases where the claimant was clearly eligible for benefit to get as far as appeal. And the head of the tribunal services has called for a system whereby the DWP are fined for every claimant who goes to tribunal and wins.

Not being able to work is an extra cost of disability.

But far from the only one