Changes to how Personal Independence Payment claims are decided
Following two Upper Tribunal judgments in Great Britain, which changed how claims for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) are decided, the Department has from 26 June 2018 started to take these judgements into account when determining PIP claims.
In addition the Department has also commenced a review of all existing PIP cases including those customers who were previously disallowed on or after 28 November 2016. The purpose of the review is to identify anyone who may be entitled to more PIP as a result of these judgments. No awards will be reduced or disallowed as a result of this review exercise.
You don’t need to do anything
The Department will write to all customers as soon as they can to let them know whether or not they can benefit from these judgements. Because of the large number of cases to be reviewed, it may take some time for you to get this letter but any PIP owed to you will be backdated.
The Department are not planning to invite anyone to a face-to-face consultation as part of this review.
More detail on each judgment can be found below
The first judgement takes effect from 28 November 2016 and requires the Department to consider how overwhelming psychological distress affects a customer’s ability to plan and follow a journey when determining entitlement to the mobility component of PIP.
The second judgement takes effect from 9 March 2017 and consideration must be given as to whether a customer needs supervision for some activities, the likelihood of harm occurring and the severity and nature of the harm that might occur.