Disabled: Food vs Heat?

Lawyers Call For Improvements To “Unacceptable” Disability Payment Delays Forcing Vulnerable To Choose Between Food and Heating




Lawyers have called for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to put an end to the delays which have seen some vulnerable disabled people waiting up to 13 months for their applications for essential payments to help pay their food and heating bills.

Irwin Mitchell has so far represented seven separate applicants for Personal Independence Payments (PIP) and after contacting the DWP or issuing court proceedings their payments have been processed within weeks despite previously waiting for months to be assessed.

The delays have meant having to effectively choose between buying food or turning the heating on with one applicant having lost one-and-a-half stone in weight as they had been left with just £8 per week to spend on food. During the winter months some applicants have also been unable to put their heating on because of the costs as they rely on PIP to help them afford to live.

The delays are due to be discussed at a Commons Select Committee meeting tomorrow (28 January 2015). At the launch of a Public Accounts Committee report into PIP in June last year, the committee’s chair Margaret Hodge described the scheme’s implementation as “nothing short of a fiasco”.

Between April 2013 and July 2014 529,400 claimants had registered for PIP assessments, yet of these only 206,000 had received a final determination. This means that over 60% of applicants who applied since April 2013 were still awaiting a determination by the end of July 2014. Evidence obtained by lawyers suggests that there has been no substantial improvement in waiting times.

The payments are used by vulnerable people to get the extra support they need because they are either disabled or suffering with a long-term illness and can help cover the costs of basic essentials such as food, heating and transport.

Now expert lawyers at the firm are calling for DWP to ensure they have the systems and resources in place so that they can hit their original estimates of two and half months. This would provide a permanent long term solution for the thousands of others who are stuck in the system waiting for their claims to be processed.