Following the Government's announcement of a consultation on reform and replacement of Disability Living Allowance, Paul Carter and Sunil Peck analyse the extent of reform and gauge the fears and concerns it's prompted.
Since the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition came to power in May 2010, speculation has been rife as to the Government’s plans for potential reform of Disability Living Allowance.
Since DLA was first earmarked for cuts in George Osborne’s emergency budget back in June, Disability Now has received an overwhelming number of emails, letters and telephone calls from disabled people frightened, angry and apprehensive about changes, even before details had been released. At the Conservative Party conference in October, some even took to the streets to make their message heard. In social media, alliances on Twitter, Facebook and blogs have been formed to unite against changes to a benefit which many disabled people feel allows them to live an independent life.
After many months of leaks and rumours, the Government has finally come clean on its plans. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has produced a public consultation document seeking views on a radical overhaul of the existing system, which will see the existing Disability Living Allowance replaced with a Personal Independence Payment (PIP), which the Government claims will be more efficient, and simpler to understand than the existing system, which it says has become “confusing, complex and unsustainable.”
From 2013/14, all new and existing claimants of DLA aged 16-64 will be required to undergo an assessment, regardless of the length of their original award. The Government is still deciding whether or not to assess children and those over 65. The existing rules of conditionality, that automatically qualify people with certain impairments or conditions, will be removed. The existing lower, middle and higher rates of mobility and care components will be replaced by mobility and daily living components, which will both have only a lower and a higher rate.
Maria Miller, Minister for Disabled People, tells Disability Now that the proposals needed to find a way to ensure that the benefit “continues to support those people it was designed to support.”
She says: “The concern that I have about the way that DLA is [currently] working is that the assessment process is subjective, complex, and that we don’t have a systematic way of assessing people’s changed needs over time. We need to make sure that the process is reformed to ensure that there’s a robust assessment process that does include reassessment over time, and make sure that people who need the support the most are receiving it.
“DLA has a very broad number of people applying for it and who are in receipt of it, with a very broad range of disabilities and conditions, so there are individuals who will have conditions that are life-long and others who will have conditions that will progress over time and others who will have short-term conditions. So the assessment process needs to be able to take account of those changes in a way that it doesn’t at the moment.
Everybody is different and the assessment process that we are currently developing will be taking account of that as it’s finalised.”
Disabled people’s organisations, charities and DLA recipients alike have reacted with unease and fear to the proposals.
Online campaign group The Broken of Britain, set up in reaction to public spending cuts affecting disabled people, referred to the proposals in a statement as “an unnecessary and expensive rebranding exercise.”
“Although the caseload will be reduced, PIP will still look very much like DLA, albeit with a 21st century name at a time when government spending, is supposedly, being squeezed,” the group said.
“The current system allows for automatic entitlement to DLA for certain conditions. The new system will not; all claimants will be required to be reassessed every few years. This is not only foolish, but also costly as automatically entitled conditions are by nature the most severe and incurable. The only thing that will be achieved is extra cost of unnecessary assessment, additional complication instead of simplification and inconvenience for severely ill people.”
Rich Watts, Director of ECDP – a user-led organisation in Essex – said that the reforms “confirm the very worst apprehensions that we held.
“There is no getting away from the fact the Government has decided it wants to spend less on DLA and is justifying where it is going to draw the line to save the 20% they’re looking for,” he says.
“The idea that the reformed DLA system provides “unconditional” support is palpably nonsense. Moving from the system (where people can self-assess) to one where the explicit aim of the reform is to reduce the number of recipients and spend by 20% is quite the opposite.”
An area of concern highlighted by some is the suggestion in the proposals that a person’s use of “aids and adaptations” may be taken into account in the assessment.
This may mean that a wheelchair-user who can freely push their own chair may be deemed to not have restricted mobility.
Linda Burnip from campaign group Disabled People Against Cuts says that this leaves huge holes in eligibility.
“In essence the consultation document seems to be saying that if you need support and get funding from another source then you will not be eligible for a Personal Independence Payment, but at the same time that if you don’t get funding for support from another source then in this case too you will not be eligible for PIP. Will any disabled people therefore be eligible?”
Others conceded that the time was right to have a fresh look at the way the DLA system is operated, but expressed concern over the manner of the Government’s approach.
Alice Maynard, disability campaigner and managing director of Future Inclusion says that often things which were once revolutionary, such as DLA, sometimes outgrow their circumstances and need a fresh approach.
“There is reform necessary, but it’s root and branch reform from the social model perspective that’s required, not a tinkering around on the edges and a tightening up in a medical capacity,” she says.
“I know the Government has said that they’re not going to make it purely medical but the way in which they talk about it belies that commitment.
“Our experience as disabled people is that the medical assessors they have selected for these kinds of roles previously have not had the skills for the job. That’s the bit that bothers me – it’s not the fact that we have to be reviewed, as that is about society using its resources effectively – “effectively” meaning don’t do it so often that you spend more money than you save, and don’t do it from a point of view purely of saving money.”
Under the proposals outlined in the consultation, the application process for PIP will move away from the current system where people “self-assess” their condition, to one in which an independent medical consultation will be required.
Maria Miller insists that this assessment procedure is still very open to influence from responses received to the consultation, and that claims that the new assessment will follow a similar path to the heavily criticised Work Capability Assessment for Employment and Support Allowance, are wide of the mark.
“DLA is designed to take account of the additional costs of being disabled; this is not replacing income because of a loss of work or because of a barrier to getting into employment so there’s a fundamental difference between this assessment process and the process for in-work benefit. But what we are trying to do is move away from what has become an incredibly complex and subjective assessment process to a simpler and more objective process, which doesn’t just rely on an individual filling in page after page after page in a form, which may well be more of a record of their own assessment of their condition rather than a professional’s assessment of the way their condition affects their life.
“This is a consultation so we want to hear people’s responses and if there are concerns around the way we’re anticipating the assessment working or the types of areas that we’re going to be looking at in terms of questions, it’s for people to put forward those thoughts or respond to make sure that this measure really works for disabled people in the way we want it to.
“At the moment we have deliberately launched the consultation before the assessment has been finalised so that we can address any concerns that people raise, so the final questioning and the final way the assessment will be undertaken has not been decided. It’s for disabled people and disabled people’s organisations to come forward with their thoughts and we can try and make sure that the final assessment really does address any problems raised.”
Many disability organisations are already mobilising to prepare responses to the consultation, which runs until 14 February 2011.
Neil Coyle, Director of Policy at Disability Alliance, said that his organisation has already begun consulting on DLA “to ensure a thorough investigation of the issues involved."
“Our research will be an in-depth analysis of DLA use, disabled people’s needs and potential risks in the Government plans,” he said. • Read the proposals and take part in the consultation by visiting dwp.gov.uk/consultations/2010/dla-reform.shtml
