In yet another lurch towards secrecy, the DWP have suddenly stopped publishing PIP assessment success rates in their quarterly statistical reports. However, using the DWP’s Stat-Xplore tool Benefits and Work has created them for you and they show a further drop in claimants getting an award.
PIP assessment rates removed
When the DWP published their quarterly PIP official statistics this week, along with PIP clearance spreadsheets, for the first time the percentage of PIP claims that were successful was omitted.
Usually there are stats giving the success rates both for PIP claims overall and for claims where an assessment has taken place.
No reason was given for the removal of the figures, but it fits with the growing culture of secrecy at the DWP. In recent months they refused to publish a report on the unmet needs of disability benefits claimants, in spite of government guidelines which required them to do so.
And the Disability News Service is currently trying to force the DWP to publish statistics on how many people pass the work capability assessment for universal credit, something which the DWP have shamefully refused to do ever since the benefit was introduced.
PIP assessment rates restored
However, Benefits and Work has used the DWP’s Stat-Xplore tool to work out the PIP assessment success rates for the most recent quarter that figures are available for, November 2021 to January 2022.
The percentage of new PIP claimants who got an award following a Capita or Atos (IAS) assessment are:
- November 47%
- December 46%
- January 46%
For comparison, the figures for the months August to October 2021 were 50%, 48% and 48% respectively. And the average assessment success rate for the whole period since PIP was introduced stands at 55%.
There are only three months in the history of PIP when assessment rates fell below 46%, and they were early in the pandemic when figures were very unreliable.
A two percent drop, from 48% to 46% may seem small. But it actually means around one thousand fewer claimants getting an award of PIP each month.
And a drop of 9%, the difference between the January average and the overall average, means around 4,500 fewer claimants are getting an award of PIP every month. That’s an awful lot of disabled people missing out on financial support that could change their lives.
And the decision by the DWP to stop publishing these figures suggests that they expect this figure to continue to fall - and they would rather claimants did not know about it.
But we’ll make sure you do.
