Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 18 March 2019 to Question 230077 on Personal Independence Payment, whether it is a requirement to complete and return Part 2 of the Personal Independence Payment application form for claims made under special rules for the terminally ill.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
There is no requirement for a claimant claiming under Special Rules for the Terminally Ill to complete Part 2 of the Personal Independence Payment application form. Where an Assessment Provider believes that a claimant does not satisfy the criteria to claim under Special Rules for the Terminally Ill and the claim is to progress under normal rules then a part 2 would need to be completed.
Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 18 March 2019 to Question 230077 on Personal Independence Payment, what steps she is taking to identify the reasons for claimants failing to attend assessments.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
If a claimant fails to attend an assessment the Assessment Provider shares any reasons provided by the claimant with DWP.
If the case is a New Claim no further enquiries are made unless where a case is disallowed a Mandatory Reconsideration is requested, in which case, further enquiries are made to establish if there was “good reason” for the claimant Failing to Attend.
If the case is a PIP Reassessment or an Award Review and the claimant fails to attend the case is referred to a Case Manager to consider the impact on benefit already in payment and further enquiries are made to establish reasons for non attendance.
Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 18 March 2019 to Question 230077, Personal Independence Payment, how any claimants failed to attend assessments as a result of (a) ill health, (b) death, (c) transport difficulties and (d) accessibility issues of the assessment centre.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The information requested is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Question 230077 asked about claims made under special rules for terminal illness and reason for disallowance. It is possible for a PIP claim made under special rules for terminal illness to be rejected as a special rules case by the Assessment Provider for not satisfying the terminally ill definition. When this occurs the claim is subsequently referred back to the Department for Work and Pensions and the claim process will proceed under normal rules where a claimant may be required to attend an assessment. A claim can be disallowed for the claimant failing to attend an assessment under the normal rules process, even though the claimant originally registered under special rules.
Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants who applied for (a) attendance allowance, (b) employment support allowance and (c) universal credit have died within six months of having those applications rejected.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The Department holds data across a number of data sets which would require analysis and quality assurance and would be a substantial piece of work to bring together to answer these questions; therefore the information requested could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants of (a) attendance allowance, (b) employment support allowance and (c) universal credit have died after registering those claims but prior to her Department making a decision on those claims; and how many of those claimants applied for those social security benefits under (i) normal and (ii) special rules.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The Department holds data across a number of data sets which would require analysis and quality assurance and would be a substantial piece of work to bring together to answer these questions; therefore the information requested could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many employment support allowance claimants who have had their application rejected under normal rules have subsequently reapplied for that social security benefit under the special rules for terminal illness process; and what medical conditions those claimants had.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many universal credit claimants who have had their application rejected under normal rules have subsequently reapplied for that social security benefit under the special rules for terminal illness process; and what medical conditions those claimants had.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The special rules applying to people who are terminally ill were first introduced in 1990 for Attendance Allowance following a recommendation from the Social Security Advisory Committee. The rules are common to a range of benefits and are also used elsewhere, for example the Early Access to Financial Assistance Scheme, administered by the Pension Protection Fund. The design of Universal Credit for terminally ill claimants is based on this well tested process. This is not a separate entitlement; this is part of the Universal Credit process, and as such, the information requested is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost. The Department is currently looking into what analytical information it can publish.
Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many attendance allowance claimants who have had their application rejected under normal rules have subsequently reapplied for that social security benefit under the special rules for terminal illness process; and what medical conditions those claimants had.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The information requested is not available. When a decision is made not to award Attendance Allowance, the claim is closed. Any further application would be treated as a new claim and will be considered on the merits of the information provided.
Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 1 Feb 2019 to Question 209781 on Personal Independence Payment, how many personal independence payments claimants died within six months of their claim being disallowed at initial decision under normal rules.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
Over 3.8 million applications to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) were made between April 2013 and 31st July 2018. Of these, 10,380 PIP claimants died within six months of their claim being disallowed at initial decision under normal rules.
There is no evidence in this data to suggest someone’s reason for claiming PIP was the cause of their death and it would be misleading to suggest otherwise. People claim PIP for various reasons, the majority of which are non-life threatening.
Notes:
Under the Social Security (Notification of Deaths) Regulations 2012 and s125 of Social Security Administration Act 1992 date of death is provided to the Department for all registered deaths. Additionally, next of kin also provide information on the date of death of an individual and this information is used appropriately in the administration of Departmental benefits.
Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 1 Feb 2019 to Question 209781 on Personal Independence Payment, what the average length of time was between a claimant receiving an award under special rules for terminal illness and initially registering that claim under normal rules.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The median time between registration and clearance for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claims that were initially registered under Normal Rules but were awarded under Special Rules for Terminal Illness is 34 working days for all claims cleared between April 2013 to the end of January 2019. For reference, the clearance time from the point a claim changes from Normal Rules to Special Rules for Terminal Illness to clearance under Special Rules for Terminal Illness is 3 working days.
Source: PIP ADS
Notes:
Figures have been rounded to the nearest working day, i.e. Monday to Friday (including bank holidays).
This data includes both new claims and Disability Living Allowance (DLA) reassessment claims.
The median time is the middle value if you were to order all the times within the distribution from lowest value to highest value. The median is presented here instead of the mean because the mean can be unduly affected by outlying cases (e.g. cases were the person has been hard to reach due to being in prison, hospital, failed to attend the assessment on numerous occasions etc.)
The 'Registration to DWP decision (end to end)' clearance time is measured as the average time between the date of registration of the claim and the date of the DWP decision to either award or disallow the claim. It does not include claims that were withdrawn by the claimant or claims that were disallowed by DWP pre-referral to the Assessment Providers (e.g. for failure to meet basic eligibility criteria).
Figures are for Great Britain only.
Figures are correct as at 31st January 2019.