Benefits and Work readers have come out overwhelmingly against the Timms review “emerging recommendation” that personal independence payment (PIP) awards should be linked to costs.
On 15 September we set up a survey asking our readers a single question:
“The Timms review is suggesting that individual PIP awards could be based on a fair contribution towards costs, including: equipment and aids; mobility and transport; clothing and bedding. What best sums up your reaction to this idea?
- Support
- Don’t support
- Don’t know”
We closed the survey two days later, with over 5,000 readers having taken part.
The response was very clear.
Support: 10%
Don’t support: 80%
Don’t know; 10%
We also invited readers to comment on the proposal and we have published around 100 comments here.
But, in total, there were almost 4,000 comments and, whilst we have read many hundreds of them, it was not possible for us to summarise them ourselves.
So, we turned the job over to AI and you can read the full summary here.
We know that readers were being asked to give an opinion on a proposal that is very far from clear. We don’t have any indication of precisely what the Timms review has in mind when it talks about a “fair contribution towards costs”.
But that is the whole issue. The government committed to the review being co-produced with disabled people, organisations representing them and other stakeholders. Timms has also told MPs that the review is being co-produced with disabled people.
In truth it has been carried out in circumstances of great secrecy and with an almost total lack of genuine communication with disabled claimants.
The review is almost complete now, the current 15 workshops and discussions with unnamed charities will be the last piece of consultation before Timms’ final report to the secretary of state for work and pensions.
And yet we are all still in the dark about what they are planning, because that is where the Timms panel have chosen to keep us.
It didn’t have to be this way.
A report released this week by the right-leaning Re:State think tank, (whose former deputy director is Liz Truss), sets out a range of cost-based award systems used in other countries.
For example, there could be a relatively low basic payment with higher payments dependent on evidence of actual costs. Denmark now operates a system in which some recipients receive a standard payment while those with higher costs can opt for support calculated using documented expenditure. Other systems require receipts, invoices or other evidence of costs.
Some support could also be provided directly in the form of goods or services rather than cash. The Re:State report gives examples including assistive equipment, home adaptations, transport support and payments made directly to service providers.
At the very least the Timms’ update could have explained which model or models it was considering or whether it was looking at a plan of its own devising.
If they don’t know that, with only around two months at most before their final report, then that is deeply concerning.
If they do know what they are considering, then why aren’t they sharing? Giving the most minimal details possible, perhaps for fear of information being leaked from workshop attendees anyway, does not amount to co-production.
We ended this survey after just two days because we wanted to publish the results before the remaining 14 Timms workshops take place. We hope that there will be Benefits and Work readers at those workshops who will be able to share your views with the review.
But, following the overwhelming response of our readers, if the Timms review now recommends a costs-based system, the claim that the plan has been co-produced with disabled people - and thus is supported by them - will ring very hollow indeed.
