Personal Independence Payments Debate
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Countess of Mar
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Personal Independence Payments
Countess of Mar Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Freud
The two processes, for PIP and for DLA—or rather, for the WCA, which I imagine is what the noble Baroness meant—are separate, and separate contractors operate them. Indeed, Maximus has come in to run the WCA process. As for the figures, statistics will be released next week, on 18 March, giving the PIP clearance times and the waiting outstanding times. That statistical release has been preannounced, in accordance with the normal protocols.
The Countess of Mar (CB)
My Lords, I express my thanks to the Minister for the excellent revision that was made of the training manual for CFS/ME. What checks are made of the assessors to ensure that they are not bringing their preconceived ideas about CFS/ME to the assessment that they make of people with that condition?
Lord Freud
This is an area into which we have looked very closely, helped by the noble Countess. We have an audit system for all of these tests whereby we test that they are being conducted to the quality that we require.