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DLA to PIP - who will be the losers and the winners?
Hi Emma,
Interesting observations. I’m not sure there are many “winners” in the sense discussed earlier. A smallish cohort will be better off on the Mobility element but almost all of those will be worse off under Daily Living. Do they count as winners? Taking each of your points:
If you need an assistance dog then there’s an argument you can’t move the distances specified in Mobility 2 unaided (certainly not safely or reliably) so you’d qualify for Enhanced Rate anyway.
There will clearly be winners amongst those who need help from another person and they’re the big winners but the orientation aid business seems to be misunderstood and the impact will be negligible.
It requires a specialist aid but most people with a specialist aid rely upon an assistance dog or another person and so will qualify by another route. On the other hand many partially-sighted people have gravitated away from low vision aids toward items like smartphones, which allow them to carry many functions in the one device e.g. magnifier, map reading, text to speech and so on. Is a smartphone a specialist device? It doesn’t seem that way to me. The regs. look generous on the mobility side but strike me as populated with red herrings.
My point re: visual field; colour; light and movement stands. The impact of functional vision versus visual acuity is not really recognised. The benefit remains all about visual acuity.
On balance I’d say there are clearly some winners but overall not.
Mike
...The winning areas are potentially around Daily Living and the use of the 50% rule, which I suspect over time will be the single most productive area of PIP work…
Isn’t it, potentially, a 26% rule rather than a 50% one?. Reg 7 PiP Regs provides:
“7(1)The descriptor which applies to C in relation to each activity..is
(a) where one descriptor is satisfied on over 50% of the days of the required period, that descriptor;
(b) where two or more descriptors are each satisfied on over 50% of the days of the required period, the descriptor which scores the higher or highest number of points; and
(c) where no descriptor is satisfied on over 50% of the days of the required period but two or more descriptors (other than a descriptor which scores 0 points) are satisfied for periods which, when added together, amount to over 50% of the days of the required period–
(i)the descriptor which is satisfied for the greater or greatest proportion of days of the required period; or,
(ii)where both or all descriptors are satisfied for the same proportion, the descriptor which scores the higher or highest number of points.
(2) For the purposes of paragraph (1), a descriptor is satisfied on a day in the required period if it is likely that, if C had been assessed on that day, C would have satisfied that descriptor.”
Applying the above rule to, eg, Mobility Activity 2, if I can manage over 200metres 49% of the year, 50 metres 25% of the year, and 20 metres the remaining 26% of the year, the relevant competing descriptors are, respectively, 2(a), (c) and (e).
Reg 7(1)(c) in effect knocks out descriptor (a) leaving descriptors (c) & (e) to compete against each other for the title of scoring descriptor. And (e) wins.
I know in practice it might be difficult to work out with precision the %age number of days as in my example, but the principle is that you don’t need to be affected most of the time to score.
Also, what happens where, again in the above example, (a) is 50% of year, (c) is 25% and (e) is also 25%. Reg 7(1) does not provide for a scoring descriptor in those circs.
Can’t disagree with any of that. What happens in your latter scenario is that the person doesn’t qualify. Nicely illustrates the inconsistency that has now been introduced.
but realistically how many case managers (decision makers) or tribunals will accept 25% and 25%? In reality I’m sure any claimant will tell the DWP or tribunal that it’s 26% & 24%. When you’re looking at the minutiae like this the theory is one thing and practice will be entirely different.
but realistically how many case managers (decision makers) or tribunals will accept 25% and 25%? In reality I’m sure any claimant will tell the DWP or tribunal that it’s 26% & 24%. When you’re looking at the minutiae like this the theory is one thing and practice will be entirely different.
Respect for coming on here. You don’t see many posters from DWP.
But 26% and 24% would still mean no scoring descriptor:)
It’s interesting playing about with the figures. Returning to the above mobility activity 2 example: (a) 34%, (c) 33% and (e) 33% would allow the person to score the enhanced rate (ie, (e) wins again).
Under Reg 7(1)(b) you can satisfy different descriptors more than 50% each. Reminds me of the dictator joke: Nervous aid approaches dictator on the night of “free and fair elections”. “I’ve got good news and bad news, Sir”, he says. “I’ll have the bad news first”, says dictator. “Ok,” the aid pauses, “your opponent got 65% of the popular vote”. Indignant, the dictator demands the good news. “Well” says the aid, “you got 78%, you won”.
but realistically how many case managers (decision makers) or tribunals will accept 25% and 25%? In reality I’m sure any claimant will tell the DWP or tribunal that it’s 26% & 24%. When you’re looking at the minutiae like this the theory is one thing and practice will be entirely different.
In reality, you’re right. That isn’t the argument that will be had though. At least, maybe not in those terms.
I think it’s entirely forseeable that it will eventually play out in a percentage version of what we have now i.e. instead of discussions with clients about whether a care need is there at least 4 out of 7 days or 16 out of 31 and so on, the discussion will proceed on the same basis and then we convert that to percentages. If we’re getting into something other than the percentage conversion of 1/7 to 6/7 then we could only be getting into some very detailed evidence in an unusual case.
I suggested in my original post that it was the principle that was important. The previous posts had proceeded on the basis that you needed to satisfy a descriptor more than 50% of the time in order to score. I was suggesting that that wasn’t the case. I think Reg 7 is poorly drafted and I cannot remember a regulation which does not cover every scenario, usually by containing a sub para beginning “in any other case”.
It’s not inconceivable that DMs/tribunals will find a client satisfies a nil point descriptor for half of the year (eg re mobility during warmer weather) and a higher points scoring descriptor or descriptors for the other half. In that situation the law as it currently stands (ie Reg 7) does not appear to allow any scoring descriptor to be awarded. That is definitely an oversight on the draftsman’s part. Lawyers like certainty. They’ll almost certainly have to add the above type of sub para at some point or re-draft Reg 7.
... Lawyers like certainty…
A candidate for quote of the year :)
If lawyers liked certainty they would draft to within an inch of their lives and put themselves out of a job. They may “like” it in theory but in practise it is probably their enemy!
That made me laugh Mike.
I suppose lawyers like certainty precisely because they know it’s impossible to achieve.
Some lawyers, particularly barristers, will devote a large amount of time trying to turn black into white, white into black, white or black into shades of grey or shades of grey into black or white, whichever suits their purpose at any given time.
Some lawyers, particularly barristers, will devote a large amount of time trying to turn black into white, white into black, white or black into shades of grey or shades of grey into black or white, whichever suits their purpose at any given time.
Define: “Welfare Rights Officer” and then distinguish from “lawyer”.
These might help :)
Lawyer = I’ll go with the Ambrose Bierce definition of “One skilled in circumvention of the law!.”
Whilst it may be the case that some particular groups of disabled people may find it easier to establish a PIP award at whatever level, the underlying point is that the government is looking to reduce the PIP award headcount by around 29% (based on December 2012 DWP data, from memory), as compared to what it would have been under DLA.
So whilst the wording of the descriptors may favour some in relation to DLA, lets not be distracted from the reality that about three out of ten will find that their declassification and consequent loss of premium passporting a very bitter pill, along with the consequent impacts on Universal Credit TP.
... three out of ten will find that their declassification and consequent loss of premium passporting a very bitter pill, along with the consequent impacts on Universal Credit TP.
I’m interested in the TP point because, under the currently announced policy intentions, the loss of DLA would not trigger a loss of TP. It might therefore be advantageous, if not necessarily practicable, to find an area where managed migration was taking place (which might, in theory, be possible) before a PIP assessment, which would probably mean the loss of DLA, was due - and move there.
Hi Gareth,
If a person on DLA fails to make it onto PIP and therefore loses premium passporting, surely that must impact on the level of TP they get if they later migrate onto UC. Is that not the case? I wonder if you are rather referring to a loss of DLA AFTER migration onto UC? That way round I can see how the loss of DLA (and no PIP) would not affect the TP element of UC. Please clarify!
Steve
Hi Gareth,
If a person on DLA fails to make it onto PIP and therefore loses premium passporting, surely that must impact on the level of TP they get if they later migrate onto UC. Is that not the case? I wonder if you are rather referring to a loss of DLA AFTER migration onto UC? That way round I can see how the loss of DLA (and no PIP) would not affect the TP element of UC. Please clarify!
Steve
Sorry Steve, my convoluted sentence doesn’t read well to me either now. I was trying to say that if someone gets onto Universal Credit before losing DLA it shouldn’t, on current rules, stop their TP. That’s why it might make sense to move to an area where Universal Credit migration was already taking place before the PIP assessment happened.