Some facts for you @Ljcrow :
a) Disability benefits in the UK are below the OECD average level, so we actually support our disabled population to a lesser extent that many countries which are poorer than the UK. PIP in general covers nowhere near the average cost to a household of having a member of the household significantly disabled enough to meet the PIP criteria - on average not even half of the additional cost.
b) The percentage of GDP spent on benefits for those of working age in the UK has remained remarkably static over the last 40+ years. The vast majority of the increase in welfare spending is, unsurprisingly, attributable to a sharp and ongoing rise in pensioner welfare. 55% of the welfare budget is now spent on the over 65s despite them being 13% of the UK population. This is due to:
1) pensioner welfare being uprated above earnings or inflation or other welfare payments for many years; and
2) demographic change with an increasing proportion of the population over the age of 65.
c) the PIP claimant group with the largest percentage rise over the last few years is the over 55s, largely due to the increase in the state pension age.
d) The rise in the number of claimants has been vastly overstated due to migration from DLA and many sets of data/ “statistics” presented in media articles with an agenda deliberately fail to mention this fact and look instead at the overall cost/ number of claimants between the two.
e) PIP is not means-tested deliberately. This is part of its design for three economically sound reasons:
1) means-testing it would fundamentally undermine its aim, which is to level the playing field a little between disabled people and others to allow them to participate fully in society. Those who have above average incomes <span class="italic">and</span> claim PIP are almost exclusively disabled people who are in work and would not be able to work if they did not receive it because it would become economically unviable for them to do so. This would mean that instead of receiving PIP <span class="italic">and</span> working and therefore paying tax and their own general living expenses from their earnings, without PIP they would become unemployed and pay no tax and claim a far larger amount in benefits to cover their full living costs, i.e. providing PIP to this group is results in lower overall welfare payments and higher taxes, as well as being a social good;
2) vanishingly few people who are wealthy claim PIP even if they do meet the criteria, largely because it would never occur to them (not being in need of any money) or because it is an arduous and deliberately humiliating process. Therefore, means-testing PIP would save a tiny percentage of the overall cost; and
3) most importantly, means-testing PIP would cost vastly more than it would have a hope of saving. Means-testing is <strong><span class="italic">expensive</span></strong> and for this, for the vast majority of public goods/ services, is usually counter-productive economically (as well as the fact that it creates economic distortions and undermines the “social contract”). The DWP and various economists have explored this option with forecasting. The estimate is that, once initial set-up costs of establishing the process and new software systems to collect and process the data (estimated at several <strong>£bn</strong>, being extremely conservative especially given successive Governments’ track record with IT projects), the ongoing annual costs of means-testing PIP is estimated to be in the region of £800m-£900m per year. This is because the Government would need to recruit and train approximately 12,000 new civil servants, pay employer taxes and generous public sector pensions for them, pensions administration, provide HR and IT functions, office space, insurance, cover legal costs for appeals, data collection and protection and compliance, etc. This means that means-testing would cost more than it saves and be completely counterproductive due to the low percentage of PIP claimants with significant incomes to begin with, the fact that means-testing would create perverse economic incentives and create another cliff-edge impacting behaviour (i.e. <span class="italic">discourage</span> disabled people from working), lower productivity and tax revenues, the saving (unless the means test level were to be set so low that the benefit would ONLY be available to the unemployed so fundamentally undermining the agenda to increase the proportion of people in work).
4) a means-test would put us enormously at odds with how other comparable countries provide support to disabled people, and, therefore, a sensible country would question why in the UK’s case it would make sense to do this and be economically beneficial when pretty much every other comparable country has concluded the opposite. It would be similar to us deciding to means-test NHS use and denying access to state-provided healthcare to people above £X income threshold. It’s quite clear that such an approach would have extremely negative overall impacts and cost the state more.
f) Restrictions on how PIP should be spent would be even more impracticable and expensive than means-testing it. This suggestion is, frankly, ludicrous. There are myriad health conditions which is why the assessment is based on evidenced impact not diagnosis. Various medical conditions impact people in such vastly different ways that it would be impossible to set a pre-determined list of allowable uses without preventing the money from actually achieving its purpose. The cost requiring each claimant to provide receipts and processing checks on these to validate each claimant’s type of expenditure would be astronomical (far, far exceeding the cost of means-testing), even if such a list of acceptable expenditure could be devised. To do it the other way proposed by the most draconian (i.e. provide dehumanising “vouchers”) would be stigmatising and again completely unworkable: how would the Government ensure that independent carers/ personal assistants/ self-employed taxi drivers/ local shops/ small businesses selling mobility aids etc all signed up to their scheme? Why would they accept vouchers rather than actual money, especially given the issues with small business cash flow? Are we really to believe that the DWP would process payments in exchange for the vouchers in a timely manner even if they did?! The only result would be the benefit not being able to be spent on much of what the disabled people actually need to use it for, or having to do so at vastly inflated prices due to the increased overheads and limited number of approved suppliers, meaning benefits had to be increased in amount very significantly.
g) Anybody who thinks that disability benefits are the most pressing issue facing the UK economy isn’t paying attention/ doesn’t understand economics. This certainly falls into the category of attempts to divert attention from genuine issues and provide a scapegoats. This is not to say that the system is perfect - it is not, as no system is. However, demonising claimants is unhelpful as is endless rhetoric about a tiny percentage of extreme fringe cases. With respect, you cannot tell “how disabled” someone is by looking at them, or from what they say to you (which often isn’t the full picture). Unless you’re a medical professional and have access to their medical records, you have no idea.
That said, it is clear that some areas of the country have disproportionately large percentages of the population claiming PIP. Reviews of the system/ of existing claims should focus on these areas in particular and establish the reasons why this is the case. Obviously ill health is correlated with poverty, but the discrepancy between claimant percentages between areas with more poverty and those which are more affluent and the discrepancy in health that correlates with income do not match, with the former vastly outstripping the latter. The reasons for this disproportionately high claimant count in concentrated areas should be established and local measures taken to address this: that isn’t a good argument for redesigning a system which is working well and not being abused in the majority of the country. The fact that data recently released shows this is a problem in specific areas also explains why there are often posters claiming they know multiple people abusing the system while others know none, so the answer to this is clearly for the DWP to focus on stamping out that location-specific abuse rather than overhauling the entire system at great expense (and with all of the associated and unnecessary economic costs of doing so).
That would, unfortunately, require a bit of data analysis and work though, so nobody will bother, I’m sure.