Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the implications for his policies of the findings of the Disability Benefits Consortium Survey, published in September 2017, that over 71 per cent of respondents found the Personal Independence Payments form hard or very hard to complete.

The PIP2 questionnaire, “How your disability affects you”, was co-produced with the assistance of disabled people, carers and organisations supporting them. The questionnaire is designed to allow Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claimants to tell us, in their own words, how their health condition or disability impacts them on a day-to-day basis. The questionnaire has a mixture of tick boxes and free text boxes allowing claimants to add as much or as little detail as they wish. We recognise that for some people the length of the questionnaire may seem intimidating. That is why we provide guidance notes to help them complete it and, following earlier concerns about time limits, introduced rules and procedures which allow claimants additional time to complete the form where that is reasonably required.

Recent independent research carried out by Ipsos MORI indicates that 85 per cent of claimants were able to complete all sections of the questionnaire and only four per cent were unable to do so. The research also shows that 63 per cent of claimants found completing the questionnaire as easy or easier than expected and 69 per cent agreed that it allowed them to explain how their condition affected them.

We constantly look to review and improve the experience of people claiming PIP. We are currently considering the recommendations made in the second independent review of PIP which included recommendations to improve our communications for claimants. We plan to respond to the review’s findings later this year.