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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Disability benefits  →  Thread

PIP transitional rules discriminatory or ultra vires?

Stuart
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Heard last week and outcome now awaited - CPIP/2980/2015 (three judge panel) considers whether the Personal Independence Payment (Transitional Provision) Regulations 2013 are discriminatory and/or ultra vires insofar as they provide that PIP for transfer claimants is payable only from 28 days after it is awarded, rather from the date of claim, particularly as they prevent supersession of DLA in the intervening period.

Thanks to the Welfare Rights Team at Sandwell Council for the update.

BBajwa
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Welfare Rights Service Sandwell

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Please raise this issue for all transistion cases, to avoid the test case rules.

We do not expect a decision for about 6 weeks.

Stuart
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Decision now out CPIP/2980/2015. and PIP transitional rules judged not ultra vires how they operate in the four weeks after DLA claimants invited to claim PIP -

... on superseding DLA in cases where PIP award is higher -

‘We accept that carrying out DLA assessments was not a realistic option ... Even if a process could have been devised that resulted only in DLA reassessments for PIP winners, it seems to us that the Secretary of State was clearly entitled to consider that it would have been disproportionately time consuming and expensive to administer, quite apart from the extra burden it would have placed on claimants, the majority of whom would not have
gained.’<blockquote> (paragraph 70)

... and on backdating PIP awards in the four week transition from DLA -

‘... we are quite satisfied that the Secretary of State was entitled to have regard to the cost of backdating the awards of all PIP winners, given first that, in the absence of DLA assessments, it was not possible to identify those in the Narrower Class so that a substantial part of the back-dated payments would go to claimants who would not in fact have been entitled to more DLA had there been a supersession and secondly that he had powerful reasons for giving priority in the design of the transition to the needs of PIP losers and PIP neutrals.’ (paragraph 72)