UK: Disability benefits (UC, ESA and PIP) - news and updates 2024 and 2025

Well sometimes you can’t appeal. If you’re claiming only one area should be 4 but you got a 2, there’s no material difference in the award so even on an error of law you wouldn’t be granted an appeal.

 

Benefits and Work have clarified this in their news article:

https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/work-on-combined-pip-assessment-has-begun

 

So it looks as if part of the idea is to stop younger people entering the system in the first place.

I read somewhere that people are substantially more likely to get an award if they already have one, so if that's true, there's an incentive to make that first award even more difficult to get than it already is.

 

The BBC is reporting on the possible introduction of a statutory safeguarding duty for the secretary of state for work & pensions.

It never occurred to me that this might not already be in place, but as apparently it isn't, it could be a positive piece of news.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8d1q8zl654o

 

I read this this morning. My first thought was not being believed is the root of most mental stress dealing with DWP.

 

This is a really interesting article on the Benefits and Work news site -

https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/the-two-pip-activities-that-provide-most-pip-4-point-scores

 

Saw an appeal of MP Tessa Munt to fill out a questionnaire on experiences of access to PIP.

Edit: This is specifically for ME patients



The link to the questionnaire:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeuH5J_D2T97iuxSYoyBPPIOzCoZ6hhB1EjhA50ylMIl1j4jw/viewform

 

I can’t fully understand the text of her tweet and what it means ?

 

Tessa Munt’s tweet says: ‘#pwme please help me with a brief anon survey.

DWP’s response to my FOI request (ed: she included two documents in the tweet) implied that v few #pwme access PIP DLA and many will lose this with the cuts.

To act I’d first like to understand, what’s up, focussing on Severe ME, thank you.’

 

Yes I don’t get what she means in that second paragraph - the abbreviation Twitter requires makes things unclear what’s gone on ?

 

The second paragraph, do you mean the link to the survey or the added FOI documents? Or do you mean something else?

 

@Chestnut tree that looks good for her to be doing... but its not an anonymous survey if you have to sign in to google to access it?? I wouldnt want to do anything where my responses could be traced back to me, no matter how much she intends for it to be safe, anything to do with the DWP, isnt. IMO unfortunate, i'd happily do it by mail with carers help - if it could be printed & posted

 

It seems she just wants everyone who is severe and gets pip to answer that they are severe and get pip?
I’m sorry but I don’t understand the aim of this, if that’s all she wants to know she could have added a voting button.
I think the chances of all PIP ME claimants responding to this are low, furthermore the chances of all severe ME pip claimants is even lower. Also she excludes very severe. Is there an assumption that they will have more than 4 points? That’s a big assumption tbh.

I think I’d be asking her what she’s trying to achieve because this isn’t the way to doit

 

The whole sentence after the bracket in the second paragraph doesn’t read in a way that it makes sense. Is it PIP or DLA that she means? I can’t tell what she is inferring with the rest - even tho it seems she doesn’t realise it doesn’t make the sense she I guess thinks it is getting across

I’ve no idea what the main message or reason for this is from her tweet

 

Yep it’s hard to describe how inaccessible things are for those severe or very severe and how inappropriate’support’ to help fill something in is. And often just wastes more energy and expects you to be grateful when they didn’t get what severe is (which is what you need so you aren’t arguing with the person who actually needs to be more up on the limitations severe comes with - but where are they going to get it from given so much misinformation)

putting cryptic Twitter stuff asking for someone to interpret your survey and reason for it - I understand people more well are pushed for time but rarely do we in return get people realising we have either the time to read that or the time to spend on something that works , not both even in what seems a long timeframe.

I say this not to be mean but because you get one chance at it with even those who might have a window in that timeframe to do something so it’s feedback to change it / take it down before lots of others waste that packet of energy in the hope that if something else can be put together then there might be some who have used their energy up who can then do what they need.

But I don’t know what they want so I can’t suggest the best method even to help them - and I’ve learned only those who’ve been close to being properly severe or very severe for long enough could advise well because it’s hard to imagine the ‘nowhere else to scrape from because you don’t even have enough for the most necessary things’ situation until you’ve been in it for long enough that the to do list of things that can’t get sorted but are essential becomes a real problem because it’s years etc

Twitter to me doesn’t feel the way to communicate, certainly not with abbreviated language . I can’t even see what they are getting at when I’ve clicked thru and racked my brain for a long time working out what is being referred to in the document. It’s just not clear.

and people need to know the context

and those severe are as vulnerable as it gets so why should they be not getting top level confidentiality requisite with this. So I agree with @JemPD

plus the devil in the detail for these illnesses - people need to understand our full strait jacket of what we live in and the cherry picking of one thing can be misleading

 

I still want to know “why”?

what’s she hoping to achieve? 5k severe people get pip and don’t have 4 points?
How does this info help?
Hasn't she heard of the 25% maybe she should just ask them.

edited - I got confused and thought she was writing a brief, but she’s doing a brief survey.

 

The green paper proposes that in order to qualify for the daily living component claimants now need to score at least 4 points on a single descriptor, in addition to reaching the total number of points required. So if you currently qualify by scoring 2 points on several descriptors that’s no longer going to be enough.

To find out how many people are going to be affected by this change should be part of the impact assessment.

 

We know how many people will be affected, it’s in the FOI which she posted.

She seems to want to know how many severe people claim pip.

 

Yes - it’s not that we don’t want to help it’s that we can’t offer a way that works (by being accessible) without understanding this.

 

For me, I want to understand what she’s trying to evidence and why it’s relevant.
Because I suspect that the evidence won’t be forthcoming and there are other ways to account for that.
And to be honest her method worries me, it’s a bit amateur, no? “I did a poll (on Twitter) which is my source for saying that….”