By 2014, the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) which has been the key benefit for people with disabilities for many years, will be scrapped.  In its place will be a new benefit called “Personal Independence Payment (PIP)”.  The whole system will be overhauled, and the Government claims that the payments will be fairer, and more targeted at individual needs rather than simply based on diagnosis.

However, we must be clear that a main aim of Government is to reduce costs on benefits across the board, so perhaps we should not get too excited about these statements.

The new payment will be based on need, not income (you can still receive PIP if you are employed as with DLA) and will be non-taxable. There will be two components; mobility and daily living. There are a number of other changes which can be found if you click on the following:

MHAG has already commented on two draft papers from DWP on proposals to change from DLA to PIP in March 2013.

In November 2011, the DWP at last issued its draft Assessment Criteria for PIP, with detailed information on proposed “scores” for various disabilities. Once again, we feel strongly that mental health has not been fully included, although the mobility aspect has been strengthened slightly.

We now have details of the thresholds for both the daily living and mobility components. They are 8 points for standard allowance, and 12 points for enhanced allowance. We still feel that these will not be sufficient to guarantee qualification for PIP for people with mental health problems.

Once again, Mental health seems to be at the bottom of the pile. Overall, we are also very concerned that this benefit will be reduced to the extent that people will be able to “survive”, rather than “thrive”. NOT GOOD ENOUGH, MR CAMERON!

We will be responding to the latest consultation soon.