PIP isn't fit for purpose

[Ljcrow]

I made this comment on another thread and thought I'd start a separate thread purely on this topic. This is all from my own personal experience rather than from reading/hearing anything, I'm only going off what I see day to day.
The people I know who claim PIP do not need it financially. One works full time and earns more than me (and I'm not at imminent risk of homelessness or starvation) and the young people I know literally tell me things like their PIP's come in so they're off to get a new tattoo, which they then do. They appear to have much more disposable income than me.
These are all people who can function in society by the way and as far as I can see, all PIP does is give them extra spending money, which I'm sure we'd all like.

I'm aware this won't be the case for everyone who recieves PIP but it is for the people I come into regular contact with. Which is why it needs reloooking at so it only goes to those who actually need the money for a specific purpose related to their disability.

We're not in a position as a society where we can afford to give people money who do not actually need it.
Things like this should be means tested, both in terms of whether people have enough income to live a decent life without additional benefits and in terms of what the money is actually going to be used for.
PIP is not fit for purpose and needs scrapping or totally changing.

You aren’t “classic” at all. Around 16% of PIP claimants are in any kind of work.
You are, by the governments own statistics, the exception, rather than the rule.

If they’re high enough you’ll qualify for PIP. Trust me I’d swap your allergies for my daughter’s life any day.

I totted it up one month, the additional cost of his disability was £1.2k. On top of our normal, every day costs that everyone else has
It might be for your son, it's not for many claimants.

And again, who is 'everyone else'? Who are those fictional families or individuals who all have the same level of needs, or lack of, that some posters here seem to be comparing themselves to?

@Passaggressfedup

I never get this bitter angle, in truth.

Our kids aren’t taking your disability benefit. They don’t get it because you don’t. There is literally no link between the DLA that arrives in our bank, and the PIP that doesn’t arrive in yours.

It is certifiably not disability benefit claimants fault that you don’t get it. If you think you should qualify and don’t, take that up with the system itself, but the people who are using that system are absolutely not at fault.

Scope research suggests that the average disability cost is £1k a month

Interesting!

If they’re high enough you’ll qualify for PIP. Trust me I’d swap your allergies for my daughter’s life any day
You have no idea what my life is like so practice what you preach and don't make assumptions on the life of people you don't know.

No I wouldn't qualify for PIP because the way I'm affected is not reflected within the criteria PIP focuses on. Well unless I stretched the truth of course!

DS1 is severely (Multiple ICU admissions for anaphylactic reactions. Biologics for his allergic asthma - which incidentally has also helped his eczema.) allergic to many, many things. His allergies do meet the definition of a disability. However, the costs associated with his allergies pales into insignificance compared to the costs of meeting his other disabilities.

You don’t have access to the financial affairs of DLA or PIP claimants, so have no real idea of whether it costs them £2 or £2k.

I can however tell you the real terms cost in our house, because I do have an idea of that cost, and I can tell you DLA doesn’t cover it.

Scope research suggests that the average disability cost is £1k a month
Of course they would! Assuming that non disabled people only need heating a couple of hours a day, can walk everywhere or take public transport, have all the hours a day to shop around to buy the cheapest and reduced ingredients to make their healthy recipes from scratch....yes, when you assume that that's how non disabled people live their lives because they could if they really had no other choice, I suppose you can come up with a lot of extra costs.

Weird. I thought you could claim PIP for basically anything these days.

So the internet had reliably informed me anyway.

That’s why the criteria are stringent. We all have a variety of different needs in various ways and are expected to cover these ourselves when they are relatively reasonable/ not unusual.

The point is that severe disability is such a significant disadvantage in life both financially and in terms of participating fully in society that for these people the state recognises the benefit not just to these individuals but to society as a whole of providing additional support i a similar way to the NHS expecting us all to purchase tissues, cough mixture and paracetamol ourselves when we have a cold but not expecting people to pay for their own cancer treatment.

Your argument would lead to one of two conclusions:

1. We abandon the most unwell in society to their fate and make no attempt to provide a small amount of financial support towards the additional costs they incur and to enable them to participate in society. Doing this, as I’ve pointed out, would actually increase costs to taxpayers significantly through lower tax revenue, higher welfare costs, health and social services costs, higher housing support costs, and lower productivity, as well as being inhumane; or

2. We decide that the state has to meet every single need of every single person, no matter how small, which is obviously completely unviable and undesireble.

Some posters don’t seem to have thought through rationally the implications of their arguments.

I do often wonder why it is that some very specific areas of state administration which - even though there is some limited validity to the assertions that the specific area of public administration could be improved - would have a tiny impact overall on UK living standards and prosperity receive such a disproportionate amount of public attention, and yet some of the obvious problems which are far easier to fix and would have orders of magnitude more impact receive comparatively little attention at all.

It’s unclear whether this is due to a lack of economic/ mathematical understanding in terms of impact and scale in the general population, or susceptibility to being influenced by the hobbyhorses and pet obsessions of various politicians and news outlets whose motivations for this are often nothing to do with the public interest, or something else. It is notable that this increases when GDP per capita is falling hence people becoming angrier and more susceptible to a search for scapegoats. Surely, however, anybody logical who has a look at the criteria for PIP wouldn’t be inclined to swap their good health for that of someone who qualifies for it, and nor would anybody sensible actually believe that the UK’s economic woes are the result of financial support for disabled people which is lower than that of the bast majority of our comparator countries, or, even more appallingly (as I have seen expressed by various of the excuses for politicians that we seem to be lumbered with over recent years) think that a good place to start with reforming public spending is cutting educational support to disabled children. Quite abhorrent, especially given that the long term costs of such cuts would be orders of magnitude more than any savings.

It will also be interesting to see how these opinions on state financial support change over the next decade as a significant percentage of the workforce suddenly finds itself unemployable, much faster than most people appear to be anticipating. Anybody genuinely interested in prosperity and living standards would be focused on this and demanding politicians explain how this paradigm shift will be managed than targeting our vulnerable citizens, so I find myself forced to conclude that most of the arguments put forward on threads like this are either disingenuous or extremely clueless and detached from reality, rather just very frustrated people looking for a target and unfortunately, as history shows, angry people are usually the easiest to manipulate into choosing the wrong one.

Some people whose main disabling condition is allergies are eligible for PIP. Allergy is split into allergy no risk of anaphylaxis, allergy risk of anaphylaxis unknown or not fully assessed, and allergy with risk of anaphylaxis. The success rate is between 20 and 30%. Although some might be recorded under other conditions such as asthma, angioedema and urticaria. Obviously some of them will have secondary conditions that they may score points for.

However, the costs associated with his allergies pales into insignificance compared to the costs of meeting his other disabilities
As do many costs associated with disabilities which are covered by PIP.

I'm not saying I should get PIP, I'm saying that people who claim PIP but don't have genuine additional costs that they definitely wouldn't otherwise have without their disability, or are able to afford with their income, shouldn't be entitled to extra financial support.

Firstly, I haven't identified them or given any identifying details.. Secondly don't tell people you don't know that they should be respectful towards someone just because they are dead. You know nothing about them so get off your pompous high horse and grow up.

I became a quadruple amputee 6 years ago and had to retire from teaching, aged 58. No benefits, just my teacher's pension and PIP. No carers; I have worked hard to develop as much independence as I can. If PIP were means-tested, I would not qualify due to (modest) savings - which I use for oiccasional days out and shorty breaks.Pip contributes towards buying and servicing my wheelchairs (had to buy a folding electric one to go in the car); extra water / electricity; stairlift; air conditioning (a side-effect of being a quadruple amputee is being unable to keep cool); adapting clothes (£25 to shorten arms on a fleece); numerous tools, aids and gadgets (£65 for an adaptive chopping board) and many more things I wouldn't need if I weren't disabled. I have found things which help me - but there's no magic list of essentials, it's very individual. Being disabled is expensive! There may be some who don't "need" PIP - but I haven't met any. I have met plenty of disabled people who feel like a burden and like they don't deserve anything nice. I think the question we need to ask is why so many people need to struggle through the difficult process to be awarded PIP and tackle that rather than jumping on this recent bandwagon of scroungers and liars being the reason for increases in PIP. See here: buds.org.uk/personal-independence-payment-fraud-the-facts/
i'd gladly give up PIP to have my hands and feet back. Heck, I'd give it up for one finger and thumb.

No, I do believe that people you were close enough to read very personal information about shouldn’t then become the subject of your online rants once they’re dead.

Take that how you will.

PIP entitlement isn’t assessed based on costs, though. So it is doesn’t really matter whether people think someone has extra costs or not.

PIP isn’t means tested and even the Timms review indicates it shouldn’t be going forward.

The point is that severe disability is such a significant disadvantage in life both financially and in terms of participating fully in society that for these people the state recognises the benefit not just to these individuals but to society as a whole of providing additional support i a similar way to the NHS expecting us all to purchase tissues, cough mixture and paracetamol ourselves when we have a cold but not expecting people to pay for their own cancer treatment
Severe disability. We agree. That's who PIP should support financially.

However, lke the majority of voters here, I don't believe that the 40% of claimants who claim under mental health are so severely disabled that they encounter significant higher costs than if they didn't suffer from mental health disorders.

Some of my costs over the last few years:
Mobility cane and another to replace the one I left behind somewhere
Lock laces because I can't tie my shoes properly. I also go through shoes quickly because of how I walk
Extra washing
One off things such as a laptop with larger screen
All the human help for things I can't do
Taxis
I can't drive so if I want to visit friends that's train tickets and a hotel for the night
Ear defenders / ear plugs
I can't use cheap pens like biros because I can't see what I've written as it's not dark enough so end up buying fine liner pens
Audible subscription as it's the only way I can read books now
I've had to buy things like an electronic magnifier whilst mine was at the cheaper end it was still £700

I only know one family claiming pip and the dh was disabled when he was shot in the spine while working as a met police officer many years ago. He has a big pension and extra money from the police plus pip. Financially they are comfortable and it enables his wife to work part time and very flexibly to be his carer. They have 3 adult dc and one is autistic and unlikely to ever live independently. They go on lovely holidays each summer. I’m very happy that despite things life has thrown at them, they are able to still enjoy life as a family. I can’t understand why anyone would ever be jealous of someone with a disability.

PIP entitlement isn’t assessed based on costs, though. So it is doesn’t really matter whether people think someone has extra costs or not
Exactly my point! So you might have people eligible for PIP who have few additional costs and can therefore spend it on whatever else they like without question whilst people with genuine financial needs but not covered under PIP have to accept their needs not being met.

because you keep banging on about people with "anxiety" being able to get the enhanced mobility... which is highly unlikely

PIP assessments have been redesigned several times since their introduction to make it vey difficult for mental health claimants to get enough points - some might say this as cut down on fraud, some others might say it was to simply cut down on benefits bill, regardless of whether this impacted people who would have previously qualified or not

If the person you speak about has been able to claim enhanced mobility, it won't have been for anxiety

PIP Points Scores Mobility Activities

1. Planning and following journeys.
2. Can plan and follow the route of a journey unaided. 0 points.
3. Needs prompting to be able to undertake any journey to avoid overwhelming psychological distress to the claimant. 4 points.
4. Cannot plan the route of a journey. 8 points.
5. Cannot follow the route of an unfamiliar journey without another person, assistance dog or orientation aid. 10 points.
6. Cannot undertake any journey because it would cause overwhelming psychological distress to the claimant. 10 points.
7. Cannot follow the route of a familiar journey without another person, an assistance dog or an orientation aid. 12 points.

1. Moving around.
2. Can stand and then move more than 200 metres, either aided or unaided. 0 points.
3. Can stand and then move more than 50 metres but no more than 200 metres, either aided or unaided. 4 points.
4. Can stand and then move unaided more than 20 metres but no more than 50 metres. 8 points.
5. Can stand and then move using an aid or appliance more than 20 metres but no more than 50 metres. 10 points.
6. Can stand and then move more than 1 metre but no more than 20 metres, either aided or unaided. 12 points.
7. Cannot, either aided or unaided, –
8. stand; or
9. move more than 1 metre. 12 points.

As I've pointed out earlier, to get enhanced mobility, you would need 12 points

Section 2 - purely physical, other than scoring criteria 2 (i.e. freely mobiile), which gives 0 points, there is nothing on this section of the PIP form that is a feature of any mental health condition

If someone tried to claim anxiety caused them to be unable to walk more than 200 metres, the assessor would simply shake their heads and give you a big fat 0

Section 1 - Items 1 to 3 could fall under anxiety, but clearly as you get to items 5 and beyond, its clear those scenarios are describing a scenario that has elements of a physical and/or neurological disability that impacts orientation, decision making and being out safe alone

but you're not going to try and tell me that people with pure anxiety have an assistance dog or an orientation aid in order to score 12 points.. because that scenario is clearly describing a physical or serious, permanent neurological condition (i.e. brain damage)

Having a health condition is expensive in so many ways x

Some people not being eligible isn’t the fault of those who apply and are deemed eligible. It doesn’t mean they are not and should not receive PIP. According to Scope’s research most receive less in benefits than they spend on disability related costs. It was only one quintile who didn’t.