Interesting report on Granada ITV

The government has spent £443.5m fighting disabled people who decided to appeal after being turned down for two key benefits, freedom of information data has revealed.
The research, carried out by the charity Scope and shared exclusively with ITV News, finds that £200m of the total was spent resisting genuine cases, in which the initial rejection was later overturned.
Altogether, more than 1.2 million decisions concerning Personal Independence Payments (PIP) and Employment Support Allowance were found to be wrong between 2013 and 2021.
The figures come as two whistle-blowers - who both worked as PIP assessors - claimed the system was to blame - arguing it was “not designed to help disabled people but to try to block them from getting benefits”.
They spoke to ITV News as part of an investigation in which claimants themselves also described the difficulties they faced trying to navigate the system that can result in a £300 a month benefit to help them adapt their day to day lives to cope with their disabilities. 
Carol Vickers from Horsforth in Leeds and Arabella Tresilian from Bradford on Avon, near Bath, both described their assessments as horrific. “It is an absolutely traumatising experience,” said Vickers, who has eight conditions that leave her in almost constant pain.
Tresilian, who has autism, PTSD and daily suicidal thoughts, described it as “one of the most traumatic events of my life”.
She said her assessor initially said they were the receptionist and observed her for some time before introducing herself as the assessor.
She was so distressed during the session that she began ticking and stymieing, and the assessor asked if she needed an ambulance, but still judged her fit for work.
Tresilian appealed, eventually winning at tribunal - but said that was also deeply stressful.

“The tribunal is horrendous,” she said, expecting a friendly room but instead finding herself at a court of justice in front of a judge.
“The fact that this is what we make disabled people do is astonishing. For me, I associated being in court with having done something criminal. I would do pretty much do anything to avoid going through PIP again.”
Meanwhile two former assessors - who worked in 2016 and 2020 - both said they were:
Ordered by managers to downgrade the points they wanted to award to claimants.
Told to mark disabled people down if they arrived at appointments well-kempt – with neatly brushed hair or clean-shaven.
Asked to assess people with conditions for which they had little specialist knowledge. 
Andy Hill was the only one willing to speak on the record because his work as an assessor was now more than five years ago, and he is no longer registered as a nurse. 
“I feel like I can speak on the record now where before I have not spoken on the record, because this is obviously still continuing,” he said.
“The whole process of the interview was trying to catch people out – watching them from the moment they came in.”