ITV news; government has spent £443.5m fighting disabled people

leeCal
leeCal Online Community Member Posts: 7,537 Championing
edited April 2022 in Everyday life
“ ITV News Deputy Political Editor Anushka Asthana reports on the struggles disabled people face to get their disability benefits and the humiliation the assessors put them through”

See
https://www.itv.com/news/2022-04-04/government-spent-440m-fighting-12m-disability-claimants

Comments

  • janer1967
    janer1967 Online Community Member Posts: 21,922 Championing
    I saw the back end of this it also had some ex assessors telling how they were instructed to assess people and do things they didn't find ethical shall we say 

    I don't believe all I see but it was interesting what I caught 
  • racyguy
    racyguy Online Community Member Posts: 560 Empowering
    Unfortunately PIP has a imperfect claiming system.
    The DWP have to follow the law although in fact it's not really the law but a cobbled together set of rules and processes that they believe is what the law actually allows for.
    At the end of the day the PIP case officer should have two bits of evidence in front of him/her - the claim form as completed by the claimant and an opinion produced by the assessing authority. 
     If the claim form itself does identify the specific points that are needed and if the opinion is seen as reasonable - on the balance of probabilities the DWP will take the opinion as being more reliable.

    Then onwards the DWP will push their decision as being the right one thus incurring extra costs through the Tribunal system.

    It is for the claimant to convince the DWP at the start that they should be believed.