Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will publish (a) the criteria used to select organisations invited to attend and (b) the organisations that attended personal independence payments consultation stakeholder events in January 2016.

The Department held stakeholder events in Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds and London. These were public meetings open to anyone who wished to attend; this was publicised on Gov.uk. Representatives of the following organisations requested to do so:

Aberdeen City Council

Action for Blind People

The Action Group

Carers Support (Bexley)

Cheshire Centre for Independent Living

Citizens Advice Bureau

Coventry Law Centre

Child Poverty Action Group Scotland

Community Navigator Services

Crohn’s and Colitis UK

Deaf Sector Partnership/Scottish Council on Deafness

DeafBlind Scotland

DeafBlind UK

Deafconnect

Elcena Jeffers Foundation

Enable Scotland

Enfield Disability Action

Gateway Housing

Glasgow City Council

Housing Options Scotland

Inclusion Scotland

Lothian Centre for Inclusive Living

Macmillan Cancer Support

Maggie’s Centres

Motor Neurone Disease Association

Multiple Sclerosis Scotland

Multiple Sclerosis Society

National AIDS Trust

Royal National Institute of Blind People

Scope

The Scottish Government

Sense

South Lanarkshire Council

Spinal Injuries Association

Social Security Advisory Committee

Swansea Council

Welfare Benefits Unit

Welsh Government

West Lothian Council

Wolverhampton City Council

Departmental officials also held one-to-one meetings with Scope, RNIB, Disability Rights UK, the Disability Benefits Consortium (an umbrella group of over 60 organisations), and Scottish and Welsh government officials. A meeting was also held specifically for members of the PIP Implementation Stakeholder Forum Working Group. Meetings were also held with both assessment providers, Atos and Capita, to discuss the impact of any policy change on the delivery of assessments.