05 February 2024 , 11:43
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Thousands of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claimants could be owed payouts worth £5,000 after a change in Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) rules.
The rule change came after a Supreme Court ruling in July 2019 and it affected the DWP's PIP assessments. PIP is a benefit paid to people who have long-term mental or physical health conditions or disabilities and the amount you get depends on how your condition or disability affects you.
There are two components - the Daily Living Component and the Mobility Component - and each pays a lower and higher rate. If eligible for both higher rates you receive £691 a month. To find out how much you are eligible for, the DWP conducts a PIP assessment.
The Supreme Court's MM Judgement changed the definition of "social support" for the assessment of the Daily Living Component. The DWP was ruled to have got the law wrong when deciding the points PIP claimants could get for the activity of “engaging with other people face to face” during their PIP assessment. This meant that some claimants did not receive points where they should have which made their PIP payments lower than they should've been.
The DWP started to look at PIP claims which could be affected by the ruling in 2021. In its latest update, published in October last year, it revealed that 79,000 had been reviewed against the MM Judgement and around 326,000 cases were set to be reviewed.
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Alongside this, 14,000 payments had been made to people who had been affected which totalled £74million - this averages each payout to around £5,300 each. However, it's important to be aware that some payments will be higher than others and some lower as it's dependent on each individual case. The DWP have urged around 284,000 PIP claimants to contact them if they think they may have been affected.
According to the charity Disability Rights UK, those who may have missed out on the Daily Living Component element of PIP, or were awarded the standard rate and may be entitled to the enhanced rate include:
- People who have regular meetings with a mental health professional, without which they would not be able to manage face-to-face encounters
- People who need the input of particular friends or relatives with experience of supporting them in social situations - rather than just any well-meaning friend or relative - to help them manage face-to-face encounters