One to one benefit assessments

[Amazonjaunt]

It would save money in the long run if all benefits claims had to be assessed one to one, surely?

Not in the quote chain I was commenting on you weren’t. You wrote “Claimants who fill in paper applications are twice as likely to be granted support as those seen in person”. (Ignoring the misleading part that actually everyone gets sent a paper form even if they don’t have a paper-based assessment.)

But I meant people who were not assessed face to face.

I’m sure you’d doubt that 65-70% of people who go to appeal were given the wrong decision also, but given that’s how many win it’s true.

the cost of appeals is phenomenal- perhaps we should be focussing on the fact they get so many decisions wrong, adding hugely to the cost (not to mention the stress for claimants) first and foremost

But that isn’t what you said in that quote chain and in multiple other posts you have focused on paper-based assessments.

It’s what I’ve been saying all along!

You have repeatedly focused on paper-based assessments. If you didn’t actually mean that and actually meant all assessments that aren’t F2F, why have you repeatedly written paper-based assessments?

It was the way it was done in the past. I worked for dhss in the 70s. Everyone was interviewed in person.

Everyone provides the evidence with their form anyway.

But one of my disabilities means that I do not find phone or in person assessments accessible, so I would not be able to fully or accurately answer their questions in those formats.

So even assuming they were the best qualified and fairest assessor the DWP employs (not sure they have any of those anyway!), they would not be getting the relevant information from me because of my disability.

Maybe you don't comprehend that, because I am articulate online. But that's why I only have email contact with them (which took me years to get put on my record, and then again separately on my daughter's record).

Similar happened to my DD.

Her assessor (who was a physiotherapist who googled two of her conditions in front of her) stated in her report that my DD walked up two flights of stairs to the assessment room (we took the lift) and that she was “clean with looked after teeth and neat in her school uniform” except DD had stitches in her face, two missing front teeth and a broken arm from a fall the week before, and her school didn’t have a uniform.

Another family I supported received a report calling their son “chatty and eloquent”, which was interesting as he had a mental age of around 18 months and had never spoken actual words in his life.

Well they say Andy Burnham wants to take us back to the 1970s - so at least in this way it would be a good idea.

The assessors are on quite good money. An ex-nurse friend considered applying to be one, the salary was well over £40k pa.

They're employed by private companies, but the DWP bear the ultimate cost, so it would increase the cost of processing claims if more applicants had to have F2F assessments. And they have trouble getting and/or keeping staff, they're always advertising.

I'm told it's a popular gig for former paramedics. Less stress, no unsocial hours, and I bet they don't get assaulted or puked on half as often.

Primarily because when you have a f2f assessment they ignore all other evidence (even though they shouldn’t) and base it solely on the assessment.

In my DDs case they ignored 2 consultants, her specialist nurse, OT and school - all of whom knew how DLa worked so wrote about the impacts on her, not her diagnoses - and focused solely on the report from the physio who had to google her two conditions and hadn’t a clue what she was talking about.

She is not an isolated case.

You didn’t need an interview to qualify for Invalidity benefit. You made your claim with them but as long as you’d had SSP and had a Dr’s note you qualified. That was the same for incapacity benefit until the mid 90s when an assessment was brought in.

Thats one of the reasons it was so easy for governments in high unemployment times to shift people onto IB to artificially lower the job seekers rate.

Because assessors will be under pressure to deny claims in an attempt to save money. Some assessors are also clearly uninformed about some of the medical conditions involved.

Yeah and the population was a low lower and the authorities had more government buildings. My friend works for the local authority and their actual office accomodation has been completely obliterated. Old buildings demolished and not paying out for more as cheaper to have home working. Not a chance that council could even find the space to interview in person. It just wouldn’t work. Zoom interviews one thing, but even that would mean taking a lot longer to process claims.

Firstly, using the term handouts is derogatory and you know it. The level of F2F assessment decreased because capacity rose significantly following Covid and the increase in claims. Lack of competence in the organisation of the DWP which began to fail significantly under the Conservatives led to a massive shortfall in the availability of competent assessors and issues with Maximus/Atos and a huge waste of money due to dreadful outsourcing and bureaucratic incompetence compounded issues in the Department that have led to a broken assessment and review system. Yet you apportion absolutely no blame for this to government or the greed of the third party assessment companies, the latter being purely in it for the money.
As for your comparison of the success of F2F assessment vs paper based- my personal success rate at tribunals representing clients is 100% in the last 2 years alone, and the majority of those awards were made-wrongly-from a ratio of 70% F2F and 30% telephone and video assessments. On multiple occasions the judge, one of a panel if 3, was astounded reading the PA4s (Google it if you don't know what that is) and went on record with their views in the written direction to the Secretary of State.
I've been at the sharp end of this for many, many years. During the winding down of DLA and the introduction of PIP from 2013- there was no transition, all claims had to be new- I personally lost three clients to suicide. Go away, learn some more, and when you've seen what I've seen, come back. In the meantime, your figures, which laughingly mention the Conservatives as well as Labour and yet the Tories damaged the system the most, mean very little. I'm absolutely sick to death of these baiting posts where the writer has just snippeted a few figures and phrases from somewhere and has absolutely no idea of the reality.

"Who" says? 🙄

I am happy to apportion blame to the government and the third party assessment companies for the mess that the benefits assessment system is in.

Lots of people in the media as I’m sure you are well aware.

That depends on your choice of media.

That, as I or any WB specialist or welfare rights adviser who has prepared an appeal and subsequently represented at tribunal will tell you that is absolutel rubbish. You make that assumption based on zero experience or knowledge.

I support people who claim PIP although it's not my actual job.
Back in 2016 a lady with bipolar disorder was in the middle of an episode of mania when called for f2f assessment. She tried to overdose. Her psychiatrist wrote a statement for her and in the end she was granted high rate daily living and low rate mobility. She's had paper assessments successfully ever since.

Some people are just too ill to deal with the system. She does work part time but is on lifelong medication and only ever one step away from a crisis.

Maybe her distraught daughter could pick her mum up off the floor and drive her there for a completely non productive interview.
Or maybe we could use common sense.

It's £579 a month. Hardly a fortune.

Not buying it from someone who has gleefully used the word lie in relation to PIP claimants (ignoring the incredibly small actual level of this) yet stated that assessors 'shouldn't lie' yet I, many other WB advisers, claimants, their families, judges and tribunal panel doctors know that they categorically do, and often; and the word handout in the same casual fashion. You have no integrity on this topic.

The assessments need to be carried out by medical professionals who understand the conditions the person claiming has.

A very high percentage of claims that go to tribunal are awarded, think on how much would be saved if they had been assessed by someone who had a bit of knowledge in the first place

I do think some PIP claimants lie and I hear you when you say the assessors lie: I’m not in a position to say that’s not true so I haven’t done that. If the assessors are lying that’s terrible and obviously should not be happening.