Select committee: Work and Pensions Committee
Recommendation 8
Fifth Report - Health assessments for benefits
Published 14 Apr 2023
Paragraph 42
Addressed to Department for Work and Pensions
Work and Pensions Committee Health assessments for benefits All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
Face-to-face, in person assessments were the main form of assessment for Personal Independence Payment and Employment and Support Allowance/Universal Credit before the pandemic, despite widespread agreement amongst claimants and the organisations that support them that they are frequently unnecessarily stressful and poorly suited to measuring the impact of some health conditions. The pandemic forced the Department’s hand in making greater use of other formats, and feedback from stakeholders has been broadly positive. One size does not fit all, however: what matters in reducing the stress associated with assessment is choice. We recommend that the Department build on its successes introducing video and telephone assessments during the pandemic. In particular, now it knows that remote assessments are possible on a large scale, that it completes its evaluation as soon as possible and commits to informing claimants of the options available and allowing them to choose what suits them best before booking an assessment.
From: Work and Pensions Committee, Fifth Report - Health assessments for benefits (HC 128), paragraph 42, 14 April 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 26 June 2023 (deadline 14 June 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Department welcomes the Committee's report and says it 'wholeheartedly agrees' that assessments must be fit for purpose, while setting out where it accepts, declines or is still testing individual recommendations.
- It accepts the recommendation on accessible digital services (Recommendation 14) and agrees with the call to evaluate the Health Transformation Programme, having published an evaluation strategy on 25 May 2023.
- It does not support extending the deadline for returning ESA50, UC50 and PIP2 forms to two months, citing 15 years' experience and a balance between time to respond and getting the correct award in place "at the earliest opportunity".
- It remains "committed to retaining audio recording on an opt-in basis" rather than recording by default, and says payment of a PIP assessment rate "could lead to inappropriate expenditure of public funds".
- On timing, it says reforms would require primary legislation and would be rolled out "from no earlier than 2026/27", with improvements to the UC50 journey to be delivered "by the end of 2023".