Select committee: Work and Pensions Committee
Recommendation 29
Fifth Report - Health assessments for benefits
Published 14 Apr 2023
Paragraph 125
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)
The Department has made, and continues to make, reforms to improve PIP assessment and WCA processes. But the pace of change has been extremely slow. The plans to scrap WCAs are significant and will require further scrutiny in the months and years to come. In the meantime, too many people claiming disability and health-related benefits, even those not directly affected by poor decision- making, continue to view the processes with great trepidation, and for a minority the experience of assessment can be devastating. The continuing high overturn rates at appeal suggest fundamental flaws in the assessment system. We recommend that while it develops its long-term plans to remove WCAs, DWP accelerates improvements to health assessments in the short-term. We have suggested some areas for change in this Report to start that process—recording of assessments and sharing reports to increase transparency are key, and these should be implemented without delay.
From: Work and Pensions Committee, Fifth Report - Health assessments for benefits (HC 128), paragraph 125, 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".