Letter from Committee Chair to the Minister for Disabled People

Dear Minister

Use of information from WCAs in DLA and PIP award decisions

Thank you for your letter of 4 February which clarified a number of points arising from the oral evidence you gave on Personal Independence Payment (PIP) on 21 January.

There is a further point on which we seek clarity—the use of information from WCAs in decision-making for DLA/PIP. You said during oral evidence that, while there may be information from WCAs that would be useful in making DLA/PIP award decisions, information from WCAs should not be “routinely” used for this purpose (Q 48).

I have received emails from DLA claimants who tell me that the letter from DWP informing them of their DLA award decision explicitly states that the decision has been reached using information from the healthcare professional who conducted their WCA.

Given that you emphasised that ESA and DLA/PIP are “different benefits with very different assessments” (Q 27), I should be grateful if you would clarify for us the circumstances in which information obtained from a WCA can be used to inform DLA decision-making and the extent to which this is happening in practice. It would also be helpful if you could clarify how you envisage WCA information being used in the PIP decision-making process.

I would be grateful for your response by 18 February. Your reply will be published together with the corrected transcript of oral evidence from 21 January and your letter of 4 February.

Yours sincerely

Dame Anne Begg MP, Chair

11 February 2013

Letter from Minister for Disabled People to Committee Chair

Dear Dame Anne

Thank you for your further letter of 11 February following the oral evidence session on Personal Independence Payment on 21 January. I welcome the opportunity to clarify this point further.

As I made clear in my response to Q27, Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and Personal Independence Payment (PIP) are entirely different benefits paid for very different reasons. This is precisely why we have developed an entirely new and tailored assessment for Personal Independence Payment, which looks at the extent to which individuals can participate in society, rather than linking PIP entitlement to the Work Capability Assessment (WCA), which focuses specifically on capability for work. Although there is some cross-over in the information gathered to support the two assessments, most of the advice contained in assessment reports for one benefit will only be of limited value to the health professionals carrying out the assessment for the other (or the Decision Makers reaching the final decision on benefit entitlement). As such we are not intending to use evidence from WCAs in PIP or vice-versa. There may be some limited exceptions to this, however, where the evidence is useful and it is helpful to the claimant – for example, to support the swift processing of claims for terminally ill claimants who have recently been assessed for the other benefit.

You are correct that Decision Makers working on the claims process for Disability Living Allowance (DLA) are currently able to, and regularly do, access recent assessment reports produced as part of the WCA. While much of the information contained within WCA reports is not relevant to DLA, which also has different entitlement criteria to ESA, there will often beinformationthat can give an insight into the claimant’s circumstances and the impact of their health condition or disability on their lives – for example, if they have not included information on mobility in their DLA claim form, evidence from the WCA may help the Decision Maker to determine whether more information is required. Given that only a small proportion of DLA claimants have an assessment with a health professional, this can often be very useful. Decision Makers are trained to identify such information and how reports can be interpreted for their purposes.

As we made clear at the evidence session, however, this is not about applying the outcomes of the WCA to a decision on DLA entitlement. While evidence gathered during the WCA process may improve the evidence base on initial decisions or suggest where circumstances may have changed, it is only part of the picture. The Decision Maker will also consider the information in the claim form, including the claimant’s own views on the impact of their impairment, and any additional medical or other evidence provided with the claim or subsequently gathered.

The Department does not hold statistics on how often WCA evidence is used in the processing of DLA claims.

Esther McVey MP

Parliamentary Under Secretary of State and Minister for Disabled People

18 February 2013