Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many assessments for (a) personal independence payments, (b) employment and support allowance and (c) the limited capability for work component of universal credit were scheduled to take place after 1 March 2020; and how many of those assessments have taken place.

Our priority throughout this Covid-19 period continues to be to protect the public and staff, while ensuring people receive the benefits they are entitled to quickly and safely. We suspended face-to-face assessments, reviews and reassessments. We continue to assess people based on written evidence alone, where that is possible, and have introduced telephone assessments. We also automatically extended awards where necessary for certain health and disability benefits, providing reassurance to those in receipt of them. This action enabled us to prioritise activity on new claims and changes of circumstances.

The number of assessments that were scheduled to have taken place between 1 March 2020 and 30 May 2020 and the number of assessments that took place during that time can be found in the table below:

Please note:

Data has been rounded to the nearest 10.

Figures do not include paper based reviews.

PIP

The Assessments Scheduled data has been produced by the assessment providers (Capita and Independent Assessment Services).

The Assessments Completed data is derived from unpublished contractual management information produced by the assessment providers which was collected for internal departmental use only and has not been quality assured to Official Statistics Publication standards.

Face-to-face assessments for PIP were paused due to Covid-19 from 17 March 2020. Telephone assessments began a piloted roll out from 23 March 2020 for Capita and 03 April 2020 for IAS.

ESA and UC

Face-to-face assessments for UC and ESA were paused due to Covid-19 from 17 March 2020. Telephone assessments began a piloted roll out from 04 May 2020 where only Limited Capability for Work Related Activity recommendations were being made.

The department continues to process both New Claims and Changes of Circumstance and encourage anyone with a change in their needs to contact the Department so that we can ensure they are receiving the correct level of support.