A Benefits and Work reader attending a Timms review workshop has been told by a panel member that a short triage call will decide whether claimants are sent a PIP2 claim form or put on a separate assessment route with no cash award at the end of it. The workshops, part of a £1 million co-production contract, have been criticised for their lack of detailed information and for using tokens and a sheet of coloured paper to get attendees’ feedback.
Token consultation
Benefits and Work has obtained copies of the documents and slides emailed to Timms Review workshop participants prior to online workshops, as well as copies of the paper documents used at in-person workshops. We have also received accounts of what took place from attendees of both types of workshop.
The documents show that the written information provided is identical to the very sparse, often unclear, details given in the Timms review September Update.
The workshop material is separated into 24 recommendations and participants divide into groups for four separate sessions, each considering one of the groups of changes. They then join together, with one person from each group selected by the paid facilitators to give feedback. The facilitators make notes and provide them to the Timms review itself.
In-person attendees are each given a token and, for every one of the 24 recommendations, they are required to put their token on a communal sheet of paper divided into three coloured bands.
Green represents “Great principle, I am in favour”
Orange represents “Broadly happy but some concerns”
Red represents “Causes real concern”
The number of tokens in each colour band for each recommendation is recorded and the results are fed back to the Timms review.
For the online workshops, attendees use a shared screen where they can drag and drop green stars, orange triangles or red squares onto each question. Many people were unable to make the software work.
Not co-production
One of the slides provided to participants explained:
“The steering group recognise that these workshops have not been co-produced but are important opportunities to hear directly from people who interact with PIP."
A private sector company, The Public Service Consultants, is being paid £1 million for “Professional Services for Co-production Expertise for the Facilitation of the TIMMS Review”.
Disabled people’s organisations, on the other hand have struggled to get any funding at all to carry out Timms review “Workshop in a Box events”.
The same slide also claimed that “Your input is really important to us and will shape the next stages of the Review’s co-production process.”
However, the workshops have a huge amount to get through, with 24 proposals to consider.
But the most consequential issues are left to the final session and the cost-based system for deciding awards does not appear until the very end of the workshop, slide 60 out of 60. Participants have reported that there was not time to discuss the idea.
Pathways to nowhere
Although nothing new was put in writing for participants, three members of the Timms review panel attend each workshop to observe and also to answer at least some questions.
One of our readers learnt from a panel member that the proposed model involves an initial triage phone call during which a claimant explains their situation. They are then placed on an “assessment pathway”. The panel member explained that, for some, this will be the PIP pathway that allows them to claim a cash benefit and perhaps services as well. For others, it will be a pathway that may lead to goods or services, or possibly just signposting, but not to a cash award.
If the details given to us are correct, the result could be thousands of potentially arbitrary and unexplained decisions not to allow a PIP claim to go forward.
The panel members did not say whether there would be a right of appeal against the chosen pathway. But even if there were, it is probable that the appeal would only be about whether the DWP had made a legally correct decision about which pathway to place the claimant on, not about eligibility for PIP.
If triage calls and the abolition of the work capability assessment (WCA) do both go ahead, then the savings on assessment costs will be very considerable.
No light to shed
There were many issues the Timms review panel were unable to shed any light on.
They could not say whether the new system would apply to current claimants when their award comes up for review.
They could not say what would happen to the work capability assessment, even though the way PIP would replace the WCA is one of the things the panel was supposed to explore.
They couldn’t say what would happen to benefits for under-22-year-olds, although these are increasingly being attacked by politicians and the media.
They couldn’t say how a costs-based system would work, though one panel member suggested that this might have to be decided after the Timms review has concluded.
One thing the panel members were able to confirm is that there is no Plan B. The split-pathways model, leading to a cost-based assessment for some, is the only model they are considering.
Begin the fight
Participants have bravely tried to extract information from Timms review panel members and to make their views heard.
But, in the end, it seems unlikely that workshop participants placing tokens on coloured paper is going to have a dramatic effect on the outcome of the Timms review.
The big decisions are almost certainly being made elsewhere and, indeed, have probably already been made
However, there are still more workshops and more opportunities to try to winkle scraps of information from panel members.
And, most importantly, more opportunities for attendees to reject these shadowy proposals wholesale, marking the first step in the fight to prevent the worst of the Timms Review recommendations ever coming to pass.
