IAS (Atos) have begun recording telephone assessments for personal independence payment (PIP) Therese Coffey, secretary of state for work and pensions, told the Work and Pensions Committee on Wednesday 30 September.
Coffey told the committee that IAS had begun recording the assessments on 21 September.*
“But that has not yet started with Capita. That is under, I can assure you, active management to get Capita going quickly on this”
claimants must ask to have their assessment recorded, it will not be done automatically.
You are likely to need to arrange this in advance. The earlier you request a recording the better, as a new appointment may need to be arranged.
A DWP spokesperson told us “This is not a pilot and is something that will eventually be rolled out nationally. The process is just not yet live in areas covered by Capita but will be shortly.”
But we have already heard from one claimant who requested two days ago that their assessment be recorded.
Our member says that their assessment, which was due to take place today, was immediately cancelled and could not be rebooked because the assessor did not wish to be recorded.
Our member was then told that maybe he would now have to wait for a face to face assessment instead.
We raised this issue with the DWP who told us:
IAS have established a process where telephone assessments can be recorded and therefore no claimants are being told they must wait for a face to face assessment.
You may still consider it sensible to record the assessment yourself just in case the DWPs recording goes astray. Though you will need to do this covertly as the DWP will not give permission.
We would still strongly recommend that claimants consider making a covert recording of their assessment, just in case the DWP’s copy goes astray when you challenge a decision.
There’s more about recording your assessment in our PIP guide.
You can watch a video recording of the evidence session on parliamentlive.tv
* This article was corrected following a clarification that PIP assessments will not be recorded automatically.
