Disabled ‘lack trust in benefits assessment schemes’
A “PERVASIVE lack of trust” among disabled people in the method of assessing their welfare claims risks undermining the operation of the Government’s flagship benefits, MPs have warned.
Since 2013, 290,000 rejected claims for Personal Independence Payments or Employment and Support Allowance have been granted on appeal – a total of six per cent of all those assessed.
The Department for Work and Pensions has spent “hundreds of millions of pounds” of taxpayers’ money over that period checking and defending decisions made on the basis of reports by private contractors, said a report by a cross-party committee.
The House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee said there was evidence that the companies carrying out assessments – Atos, Capita and Maximus – have produced reports “riddled with errors and omissions”.
Noting that quality targets set for them had been “universally missed”, the committee said Ministers should consider taking the process back in-house when contracts come up for renewal in 2019 and 2020.
The committee received an “unprecedented” number of responses from PIP and ESA claimants, with almost 4,000 detailing “shocking and moving, credible and consistent” accounts of the failings of the system.
Their recurrent complaint was that they did not believe the companies’ non-specialist assessors could be trusted to record evidence of their conditions accurately.
Assessors were viewed as “at best lacking in competence and at worst actively deceitful”, while many claimants reported experiencing “a great deal of anxiety and other deleterious health impacts”.
A DWP spokesman said 83 per cent of ESA claimants and 76 per cent of PIP claimants said they were happy with their overall experience.
Capita said it had a continuous focus on improving the assessment process for individuals.