How the Timms Review can unlock opportunity for disabled people

Today we have published a report with six new proposals for the Timms Review of Personal Independence Payment that will build security, remove fear, and reduce hardship.

Disabled people tell us again and again that getting the support they need from our social security system is confusing, time-consuming, combative and scary. Last week I was in a workshop with disabled people with experience of needing food banks. Two powerful contributions expressed deep frustration that they had been raising these issues for years but nothing seems to change. The Timms Review therefore offers a vital chance to finally get the system right.  

Being disabled shouldn’t mean you experience hardship, but additional costs, a lack of accessible jobs and inadequate support mean three quarters of the people we see in food banks are disabled.

PIP is meant to support with additional costs: home adaptations, higher energy bills for running equipment, specialist food, taxis because public transport is inaccessible. PIP should help disabled people navigate the barriers they face so that they can work, participate in society and live their lives. Instead, unnecessary bureaucracy, delays and repeated assessments hold them back and damage their health further.

The Timms Review can fix this with six common sense proposals to build security, remove fear, and reduce hardship. Scotland has shown what a more efficient and compassionate system can look like, through a commitment to dignity and respect and making better use of medical evidence (and it doesn’t cost more or lead to more claims).

Get assessments right first time

Assessment decisions are too often wrong, leaving people without critical support. Sixty-five percent of decisions that go to tribunal are overturned, but only after many months or even years of waiting. Generic questioning and not enough time mean assessors can’t accurately judge the support someone needs. There is too much focus on how someone presents on the day of assessment, when we know the symptoms of many conditions fluctuate significantly. Someone may be able to cook a meal one evening – but how often, how safely and with what support?

These problems aren’t new, but the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been far too slow to learn from its mistakes: we need to do more to ensure improvements are followed through and stick.

Proposal 1: Alongside better use of medical evidence, our report details how simple improvements to the application forms and the guidance for PIP assessors, reflecting tribunal case law, would gather the right information to accurately assess the support someone needs.

Proposal 2: The remit of the Social Security Advisory Committee and the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman should be widened to embed greater scrutiny and accountability on DWP’s decision making and prompt action to improve.

Provide disabled people with the security to experiment

At award reviews, rather than using existing evidence and checking what has changed, the process starts again with lengthy forms and costly, demoralising assessments. For people with lifelong conditions or progressive illnesses, this wastes resources and creates huge stress.

PIP provides support to people both in and out of work but there are many examples where starting work has been used as evidence of no longer needing support – even where that support is what made employment possible. 

Many disabled people describe living in a near constant fear of their support being taken away – forced to prioritise filling in forms and appealing decisions to hold onto life-enabling support, over progressing their wider life aims including employment or volunteering. That is not enabling disabled people to work, have independence and live their lives - that is holding them back. 

Proposal 3: Rather than repeating the whole assessment from scratch, we need a more efficient approach, learning from Scotland’s success. Our report details how a simple form asking about changes and requesting consent to access medical evidence could make full reassessments unnecessary in many cases. Where assessments are needed, they should focus on changes in support needs and gaps in evidence.  

Proposal 4: Strengthen the government’s new ‘right to try’ policy, giving people who attempt employment real breathing space before any reassessment.

Proposal 5: Extend the government’s recent change to three-year minimum award lengths for PIP to under-25s and to WCA claims. 

Connect PIP to wider support 

The idea of replacing payments with state provision of standardised services or products fails to acknowledge that PIP’s existence as a cash benefit is critical for its ability to support disabled people with the wide array of additional costs that they face every day. However, there are missed opportunities to use assessments to help connect disabled people with wider support. 

Proposal 6: Provide a process for assessors, with the applicant’s consent, to communicate with local services about unmet needs.