It's enough to give you the PIP

This is a story about PIP. And compared to my usual blogs, it’s a long one.

PIP is Personal Independence Payment. PIP is a benefit paid by the Department of Work and Pensions. According to DWP “Personal Independence Payment (PIP) can help you with some of the extra costs if you have a long-term ill-health or disability.”

PIP is made up of two elements. The Daily Living element and the Mobility element. The Daily Living part is aimed at helping with extras costs for care and the Mobility element is to help pay the additional costs disabled people have in getting around.

I’ve blogged before about my illness and how I suddenly became disabled in 2016, so I’m not going to cover old ground. But in early 2017 I applied for PIP. At that time, I was in a wheelchair.

In order to qualify for PIP you have to be seen by a medical assessor, sometimes a nurse, sometimes a paramedic or physiotherapist. (These are all employed by a private company working for DWP called ATOS or the Independent Assessment Service as they call themselves now. I’m not sure who they are independent of.)

Anyway, in January 2017 an assessor came to the house and assessed my claim. He sent off his report to some minion in DWP who found all the right boxes had been ticked and I was awarded the Enhanced Rate for both daily living and mobility. And this was for 3 years.

For us, the best thing of this was getting the Enhanced Rate for mobility as people with that are entitled to a Motability Car. Motability is a charity originally set up to provide “Invalid carriages” (do you remember the 3-wheeler blue bubble car type things?) Nowadays they help disabled people on PIP (and other benefits) lease cars with adaptations. And the person receiving the car then signs over their PIP mobility to Motability.

So, this was fine. I got a new car, adapted so I can drive just using hand controls and with a hoist in the back so I can lift my mobility scooter in and out.
The car has been wonderful. Without it I couldn’t work, simple as that. And given my disability, and the need to ferry the scooter around, it needs to be a big car – one I wouldn’t ordinarily buy.

As I said, the PIP was awarded for 3 years which means I would need to be reassessed at some point. And in September last year a form arrived from DWP for me to complete. I did this to best of my ability and sent it back. Just before Christmas, I received a letter from DWP inviting me to attend an interview in Swindon for a reassessment. I say “invite” it’s a summons. If you don’t go, your PIP will be stopped.

On Friday 10th January 2020, my wife drove in my adapted car to Swindon. We knew roughly where the assessment centre was and knew that parking wasn’t great round there. (They don’t make it easy do they?) So we took my scooter. Just as well as we had to park a fair way from the centre and once inside it as a big building. My appointment was at 3pm My wife and I arrived at 14.50. I booked in at reception and was told the assessor “Karen” was “running late”. When I asked how long the delay would be, I was told it would be “about half an hour”.

At 15.20 the Receptionist came and told me that I would be seen by Karen but not until around 15.45. I was asked if I wanted to stay or rebook. I said I would stay.

I was already anxious about the assessment and this delay made me even more anxious. So much so that I felt nauseous and went to the toilet.

At 16.00 the Receptionist came and told us that “Karen was now reading the paperwork” and would be ready shortly.

At around 16.05 Karen came out to collect me. I askd Karen how far it was and whether I’d need the scooter. “No, it’s about 10m”.

We were shown into the room and I sat down. Karen apologised for the delay and said, “Because I was running late, I’ve not been able to read all the paperwork.”
It was also clear she was in a rush as she made a comment to the effect “Can’t wait to finish so I can go home for a glass of wine.” This might have been meant in a jocular way, but it did not fill me with confidence that the assessment would be carried out properly.

My assessment took about an hour. During the time Karen (clearly following a script) asked me a whole load of questions relating to my form. And crucially Karen asked how far I could walk. And this turned into a nightmare.

On the form I ticked I could walk between 20m – 50m. I wasn’t certain about this. The reality is I generally can only walk up to about 20m. But sometimes (operative word) I can walk more in fits and starts. I need to stop for the pain to ease. I thought they meant how far in total can you walk so that’s the box I ticked. Big mistake.

The assessment finished, and Karen went off for her glass of wine no doubt, leaving me feeling completely shattered.

A couple of months later a letter from DWP turned up. They considered that I am now only eligible for the standard rates of PIP. I had no gripe about the standard rate for Daily Living but to remove the Enhanced rate for mobility meant I would lose entitlement to the car.

The letter hit me for six. I was reduced to tears and sleepless nights wondering what we would do. My wife assured me that we’d be able to buy a car if needs be – though I know to buy a big enough car and have the adaptations done would be pricey. (The adaptations cost around £3,000.)

But the DWP in their wisdom offer something called “A Mandatory Reconsideration”. In other words, my case is referred to someone higher up the tree who reviews the whole application.

The PIP minion who made the initial decision, based on Karen’s handiwork, has to supply a statement for the decision. And reading through this I felt that Karen or the Minion had missed some crucial points about my claim. Therefore, I submitted a Mandatory Reconsideration – though more in hope than expectation. As my wife said, “All you’re doing is asking DWP to re-mark its own homework.”

(Oh, by the way. When DWP send out their decision letter they tell you clearly that you need to request a Mandatory Appeal decision within 1 month of the date of the letter. By the time my letter arrived a week of that month had already gone.)

Anyway, I applied for the Mandatory Reconsideration and sent a covering letter explaining why they had got things wrong. And the reason why was I believed they had not taken into account their own assessment criteria which states:

Considering reliability involves looking at whether the claimant can complete the activity as described:
• safely – in a manner unlikely to cause harm to themselves or to another person, either during or after completion of the activity
• to an acceptable standard
• repeatedly – able to repeat the activity as often as is reasonably required
• in a reasonable time period – no more than twice as long as the maximum period that a non-disabled person would normally take to complete that activity

I explained why I felt this in my submission, with examples.

My Mandatory Reconsideration request was sent off on 25th March. During April May and June, the sun shone, the birds sang. But in my world, there was a perpetual little black cloud of worry hanging over me.

On the 2nd July the little black cloud burst, when I heard the DWP had not overturned its decision. For 3 or 4 days I was in a dark place. Darker than I’ve ever been before. I was frightened and I felt what’s the point. Thankfully, my wife realised what was going on and helped me through.

And one of the things she got me to do was to focus on an appeal. (And of course, DWP insist on an appeal request being lodged within a month of the date of their decision. My Mandatory Reconsideration decision letter was dated 24th June and it arrived on 2nd July.

After several days in which I scoured the internet for information, I thought I’d turn to social media to see if I could get some help. Now bear in mind that I studied law at university, I have another degree, and in my working life I was used to form filling and so on. But I was daunted by this process. I needed help. So, I put out a Tweet.

Within no time several people responded with some really good advice and one in particular sounded hopeful. It was from someone called Ben Furner of Furner Communications. Ben is disabled himself and specialises in PR work relating to disabilities. In a message he promised he’d phone.

He was good as his word and a couple of days later we spoke at length. He felt I had good grounds for an appeal and said he’d help. And first off, he helped me find the right words for the appeal form.

After that we spoke a couple of other times with Ben giving me pointers on the kind of evidence I needed to get together, including from a physiotherapist.

And this is where it’s useful having contacts. I have a cousin who is a retired physio and I asked her if she knew of a physio who might be able to give me a consultation. My cousin pointed me to her friend Charlotte. It turned out that Charlotte although no longer practising, she had experience of dealing with PIP appeals for patient. She gave me pointers too.

Then I managed to get back in touch with one of the community physios who saw me back in 2017. She came to see me and said she’d write a letter of support.

During all this, I’d heard from Motability saying that my car would have to go back on 20th August as I was no longer receiving Enhanced PIP. They take no account of an appeal pending. This seemed so unfair. I was appealing, and who knows I might win, but in the meantime the car would go back.

We reached the decision that we’d buy the car as we realised to buy a replacement and have £3,000 worth of adaptations done was beyond us. Fortunately, Motability were really helpful and offered to sell the car to me for a very competitive price.

Meanwhile I’d written yet another statement about my condition and why I felt the decision was wrong. I’d sent this to Ben to critique.

About a week ago Ben and I had another talk. He was pleased with the evidence gathering and we were talking about when we’d submit papers. Ben was also aware that DWP had until 11th of August to reply to my request for an appeal. And Ben said something interesting:

“I’m hearing more and more of DWP phoning up people applying for appeals and offering a settlement. If you get such a call be careful. Come back to me before you agree anything.”

I assured him I would and said that I was only interested in getting the Enhanced PIP so I could get a Motability car. And anyway, I knew I’d have to go all the way to appeal.

On 10th August I got a phone call from DWP. A lady tasked with reviewing appeal applications. She told me that she had reviewed ALL the papers and was pleased to confirm that I was entitled to Enhanced Mobility rate meaning I could continue with my adapted car. She told me that Karen the original assessor had not commented on the fact that I came to the interview in my scooter. I had pointed this out in the Mandatory Reassessment. “And I’m sorry Mr. Gray it should have been picked up then.”

I could not believe that DWP would not be fighting the appeal and neither could Ben Furner.

Upshot is my mobility PIP will be at the enhanced rate and I can go back on to the Motability scheme.

This has been a horrible experience. As I’ve said, I’m not unintelligent but I have found the whole process daunting. How would someone who finds paperwork challenging cope?

What have I learned?

Firstly, the importance of appealing. Don’t sit back and give in. I’ve heard several different people say that the chances of success are high. According to an article on the Independent Living web site, as of April 2020, 76% of PIP appeals to the Tribunals are successful.

Secondly, this begs the question why isn’t something being done to stop 76% of PIP cases being wrongly assessed in the first place? The cost of incorrect admin must be huge. Or has some Government minister worked out that it’s worth it compared to the 25% of appeals not upheld.

Thirdly. Benefit fraud versus tax fraud. The last job I did before entering ministry was managing a housing benefits fraud investigation team. Therefore, I know some fraud exists. But equally I know benefit fraud is minute compared say to tax fraud

A Government report provides estimates of fraud and error levels in the benefit system in Great Britain for the financial year 2018 to 2019.

The main points from the report are:
• 2.2% of total benefit expenditure was overpaid due to fraud and error
• the estimated value of overpayments was £4.1 billion
• the net government loss, after recoveries, was £3.0 billion, or 1.6% of benefit expenditure
• 1.1% of total benefit expenditure (or £2.0 billion) was underpaid due to fraud and error

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fraud-and-error-in-the-benefit-system-financial-year-2018-to-2019-estimates#:~:text=The%20main%20points%20from%20the,or%201.6%25%20of%20benefit%20expenditure

Compare tax fraud / evasions

HMRC reported in June 2018 the total tax gap at £33 billion for 2016/17, representing 5.7% of total tax liabilities.

Throughout the tax year running from 2016 to 2017, the total cost of tax avoidance came to approximately £1.7 billion, while tax evasion was around £5.3 billion within the same time frame.

Overall, it’s estimated that the UK’s loss of revenue due to tax evasion comes to around £70 billion.

£2 billion has so far been recovered from perpetrators of offshore tax evasion in just under a decade.
https://www.patrickcannon.net/insights/uk-tax-evasion-statistics/#:~:text=Cost%20of%20Tax%20Evasion%20in%20the%20UK&text=Throughout%20the%20tax%20year%20running,to%20around%20%C2%A370%20billion.

Fourthly, why does the Motability car have to go back pending appeal? This is hugely unjust to those people who have their appeals upheld but who lose their car in the meantime. Some won’t be able to make other arrangements as we could have done. (Though if the call hadn’t come from DWP on Monday we would have bought the car incurring expense we didn’t ultimately need.)

I think my MP gets fed up of me writing to her about all and sundry. Well she’ll be getting another missive very soon.