Over 20,000 PIP claimants reported a change in circumstances, quarterly figures reveal

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has published its latest quarterly Personal Independence Payment (PIP) statistics for the quarter ending January 2022, which highlight the trends of people claiming the disability benefit.

PIP helps with some of the extra costs caused by a long-term disability, ill-health or a terminal illness. The finances could be used to purchase essential assistive technologies for people with reduced mobility or cover the costs of a carer, for example.

DWP’s quarterly statistics cover the customer journey from registration through to payment, providing key data on PIP registrations, clearances, awards and mandatory reconsiderations. A mandatory reconsideration (MR) is where claimants who wish to dispute a decision on their PIP claim at any stage ask DWP to reconsider the decision.

The statistics cover both new claims and claims made by those with an existing claim for Disability Living Allowance (DLA) (known as reassessments). From the 8th of April 2013, the DWP started to replace DLA for working-age people with PIP.

DWP has reinforced that PIP statistics can be affected by various factors including, “unprecedented” demand, health professional and DWP case manager resource, and ongoing COVID-19 pandemic effects.

In the quarter ending January 2022, there were 170,000 registrations for new claims, 23,000 reported changes of circumstance, and 19,000 registrations for DLA reassessments. All of these figures are lower compared to the previous quarter, which could perhaps suggest that the department is slowly getting through its “unprecedented” caseload.

However, for the quarter ending January 2022, there were 130,000 planned award review registrations and 75,000 MR registrations, which are both higher than the previous quarter.

DWP has also reported that, as at 31st January 2022, there were 2.9 million claimants entitled to PIP, with just over a third of cases receiving the highest level of award.

There are two types of PIP awards: the daily living part, which is where the claimant needs help with everyday tasks, such as drinking, making decisions about money, bathing or reading, and the mobility part, which is where the claimant needs help moving around. The highest level of award refers to claimants who receive both the daily living part and the mobility part of PIP.

Earlier this year, DWP announced some proposed PIP increases that are due to come into effect from 11 April 2022. More information on the weekly payment increases can be found here.

From April 2013 to January 2022, overall figures from the DWP reveal that 6.4 million claims to PIP have been registered and 6.1 million claims have been cleared. Additionally, two million MRs have been registered, and almost all of these have been cleared.

The Work and Pensions Committee is currently running a survey to hear about people’s first-hand experiences with PIP in its examination of the effectiveness of the application and assessment processes for benefits paid to disabled people and people with long-term health conditions, amid continuing concerns about the problems being experienced by people making claims.

This survey will be open until mid-April 2022. More details about the survey, some of the concerns surrounding the PIP process (in the committee’s view), and how to submit views to the survey can be found here.