Almost two out of three people who apply for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) get nothing at all unless they are terminally ill, DWP figures released today reveal. The statistics also expose the massive backlog created by the combined failures of Atos, Capita and the DWP, with fewer than one in six claims having so far been decided.{jcomments on}
Not including claims under Special Rules (for those who are terminally ill), by the end of December 2013, the total number of new claims for PIP reached 220,300.
By the end of the same period, only 34,200 claimants had been given a decision – a mere 15.4% of the new claims made.
Of these, only 37% were awarded some rate of PIP.
To put this in perspective, this means that only 12,654 people, out of the 220,300 who have made a new claim for PIP in the 9 months since the beginning of April 2013, have been awarded PIP.
This contrasts with the report on the success of new DLA claims, which in the year ending March 2011, showed an award rate of 43%.
It would appear that the government is on track to be successful in reducing the spend on welfare benefits, by not only delaying awards and payments for many months, but also finding claimants ineligible at a higher percentage rate.
Of those claiming under Special Rules, 100% received a decision to award PIP. Notably, the number of decisions under Special Rules exceeds the number of new claims by 200; the DWP indicates that this could be due to claimants being assessed as eligible, despite not having claimed under those rules.
Read the full report from the DWP here
Our thanks to Papasmurf for spotting this report for us.
