Tell us if you support PIP awards based on disability costs

Details: Published: 15 September 2026

The survey is now closed. Read more about the results here.

As carefully controlled workshops which appear designed to justify using costs to determine PIP awards are launched today by the Timms review, Benefits and Work is asking readers to give their opinion.

We want you to take a few seconds to answer a single question and, if you wish, make some comments afterwards. Whatever happens, Timms should not be the only source of feedback on this idea.

Last week, the Timms review September update contained the bombshell proposal to fundamentally change the way PIP awards are decided. The recommendation was buried in the final few lines of a document that contained a blizzard of other recommendations.

The review is arguing that awards should be decided based on a fair contribution by the DWP to the extra costs of disability, based on categories including “equipment and aids; mobility and transport; clothing and bedding.”

This would be a huge change from deciding individual PIP awards on the basis of the difficulties that individuals experience with daily living and mobility activities and is likely to severely disadvantage some groups of claimants.

The only opportunity disabled people will have to comment on this proposal is via 15 workshops, to which just three hundred people – selected by the DWP from 4,000 applicants - have been invited.

There is little doubt that much of the time at the workshops will be devoted to less life-changing issues, such as making the language in DWP communications more respectful.

And, at the end of the process, the DWP is likely to argue that the Timms review was co-produced by disabled people and therefore its conclusions are supported by the majority of disabled claimants.

There is also little doubt that, after all its deliberations, the Timms review will conclude that awards based on costs are the way forward.

So, in an attempt to discover if this is really what the majority of disabled people want, we are asking readers to take a very simple single question survey to say whether you support the idea of cost-based awards. You can also leave a comment as well, if you wish.

The survey is completely anonymous, but you can only complete it once. There is a live link to the survey results, where we will also be publishing a selection of your comments each day. So please don’t post anything you would not be happy to see published online. If there are a large number of comments we will also use AI to summarise them.

The survey is now closed. Read more about the results here.

Take part in the survey

Tell us whether you support the idea of PIP awards being based on disability costs.

Complete the survey Please share the link.

See the live results

See how people have voted and read a selection of anonymous comments from readers.

View the live results and comments

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Diceman24 · 19 days ago
Media are so bad new record people claiming pip benefit but they don’t say oh it’s people from esa and dla transfers which is why more people claiming pip also with the media putting in their papers I wouldn’t be surprised if the the timms report get published next week.
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robbie · 19 days ago
Surely pip is already based on costs? If not on what? What we do 't want is for those costs to be undervalued or reconfigured. If the government were honest about making an award based on costs they'd give us more, which could happen if the equipment, services, food, clothing etc were added to, not exchanged for, or subtracted from a cash payment.
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AB · 19 days ago
Every persons needs are so individual, you would need an army of people processing the requests.
I spend my pip, on one my Motability car, two buying in extra help, three additional nutrition i couldnt
Does the country really need to assess all this and send me a bleedin voucher? Maybe employ some American multinational to do it at cost of millions?
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Dot · 19 days ago
No do not support the review it will plunge people into poverty and my pip money goes on food and paying bills to keep warm. And we don't tell MPs what they can spend all there money on. And don't get me started on the millions which has been spent on migrants who come over here being put in hotels etc. So why don't they look at all that money being wasted
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Matt · 19 days ago
I've done the survey. The word we must emphasize is INDEPENDENCE! Also I don't see why I need to justify my spending to some DWP bureaucrat who enjoys having a power trip to decide if you are eligible or not. There are enough of this type of person in supervisory roles. All Labour care about is trying (unsuccessfully) to get as many people into work so that they can be taxed.
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N.B.C · 19 days ago
No way in hell Will ever support such a display if punitive behaviour as this
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Tinkertytonk · 19 days ago
I have had two care assessment over past sox years both identified i need a personal assistant. However due to my mental health issues and cptsd filling in such complicated forms takes me to suicide. Therfore since identified in 2020 I have not got a personal assistant or any help from social services because I can not complete the forms. How on earth will I qualify for anything if I have to run a weekly or monthly expenses invoice. Can't face the notion. Don't see me being around long if this is brought in. On lifetime award of pip (only got that because of a brilliant private benifits advisor fill in in the forms). Will my lifetime award 60 now be reassessed and more paperwork to attempt and fail at. Distraught concerned and extremely frightened.
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  mangof · 19 days ago
  
  @Tinkertytonk Thanks for your reply. Yes it is difficult to find good help where I am too.
  
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  Tinkertytonk · 19 days ago
  
  @mangof I just tralled the Internet for weeks trying to find someone who could help. My cmht had a benifits support person but did not feel confident in them so kept on looking and found a place in Liverpool miles from where I live and they alloted me a chap. Sadly they could not get funding a couple of years ago and shut so I'm floundering trying to find someone who may be able to help if any of this comes to pass. Last resort I can go to my community mental health team person but not that confident in their knowledge.
  
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  mangof · 19 days ago
  
  @Tinkertytonk I am sorry you are distraught. I am finding all this v distressing too, but I guess we need to see what eventually gets brought in (the last proposed changes to PIP were cancelled in the end). And I’d hope your lifetime award doesn’t get changed. I get the distress - I found migrating to UC extremely difficult mental health wise and I had my therapist supporting me through it.
  
  Can you tell me where you found a private benefits advisor to fill in the forms? They sound helpful.
  
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HBS · 20 days ago
we dont tell MPs etc how to spend their endless allowances or income!!!!!
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Aw · 20 days ago
Too many people with severe MH rely on PIP for things which are essential for our stability and mental health but are not specifically designed for disabled people such as companion animals or extra housing costs such as the bedroom tax when we are too ill to be moved or because we would lose our support systems. This would be a life ending change for me and it would be for many others.
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  Caroline · 19 days ago
  
  @Aw Couldn't agree more. Without my animals I wouldn't have a reason to go on, so my PIP pays towards their care. No one has a right to take away whatever it is that makes our lives easier - it's hard enough as it is to have a disability, mental or physical, let alone be treated as a third class citizen. I do wish the government would remember that although they don't seem to think we matter, we all have a vote!
  
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JBob1234 · 20 days ago
The solution to PIP being used for things other than the extra costs of disability. Is not to redefine people and reduce or remove their PIP. It is to reverse the cuts to money intended to pay for groceries, utility bills, rent, council tax, mortgage.

UC basic allowance and local housing allowance and council tax reduction and support for mortgage interest: All cut in real terms since 2010.
UC LCW premium reduced to zero
UC LCWRA premium recently halved for most new claimants.

The solution to better enabling disabled people to live independently and take part in society. Is not to ask or require people to give up some of their PIP to pay for services or equipment or home adaptions. It is to reverse the cuts to money intended to enable people to live independently and take part in society.

Working age DLA low rate care component money to pay for needed support to live independently: Abolished
Independent Living Fund money to pay for needed support to live independently: Abolished
Severe Disability Premium money to pay for needed support to live independently: Abolished
Specialist residential colleges teaching independent living skills to the disabled : Funding cut.
Social fund grants to pay for white goods and furnishings for disabled people moving out of care homes to live independently in their own home: Abolished
Percentage of new build homes to be built adapted for disabled use : Reduced
Date for public transport railways to be made disabled accessable : Extended
And so on...
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  robbie · 19 days ago
  
  @JBob1234 Yes, completely agree. People are spending pip on things for which it was not intended because it has to supplement their income or income replacement benefits, including, increasingly, pension, as people have to wait longer to get it and are too old/ill to keep earning.
  
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  HBS · 19 days ago
  
  @JBob1234 Social Fund was scrapped years ago
  
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(No) hope · 20 days ago
I’ve completed the short survey and added my own supporting statement. This based on the assumption that the costs consideration will result in reductions and cuts. I’ve not read or heard anything that suggests the opposite.
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godgivemestrength · 20 days ago
If (when) the survey reveals overwhelming resistance to cuts disguised as cost valuations, it will be impossible for the Timms review to ignore it and pretend there has been any co-production whatsoever, and the process will be exposed as, essentially, a scam.
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Wayne · 20 days ago
Also the cuts would probably remove the care alowence for everyone I never did the lwcra my wife as it but I didn't need it because I get caera alowence and uc would hound me to deth
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Wayne · 20 days ago
Survey dun hope the cuts don't go thew as our mobility car will have to go back and no hospitals appointments for my wife she goes two 3 a year and I am her carer we both use 2 mobility scooters and they want fit in a taxi
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keepingitreal · 20 days ago
I'd need to know whether the cost element would be a voluntary or a compulsory exchange of all or part of a pip award, or an extra offering on top of a (perhaps reduced) cash payment before I could answer that question.

I also find it strange that there is no mention of personal care or personal assistant expenses in the costs considered, when these could amount to needing to pay someone an entire wage.

If pip awards were to be made on the basis of a tailored cost assessment, even if the payments remained cash, then a great deal of research and work would have to be ongoing to determine those costs accurately when costs are constantly changing.

Lately, an exchange of part of a pip award for a service, namely the motability scheme, has come under fire. I wonder whether a similar sacrifice of cash for care would survive the scrutiny of those who will never be happy at the consideration they see given to the disabled.

I also wonder what choice there would be of services offered - whether there would be an individual or one size fits all (which it clearly does not) approach. Again, a hugely complex process to arrive at a system 'fit for purpose', as they say.

It feels precarious to vote on something so undefined, and rather as if the latest revelation of the Timms review thinking has been designed to draw us out before there is clarification of what is actually on offer.
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