Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 24 September 2020 to Question 90092 on Personal Independence Payment, how many of the 2,140 claimants who had their claim disallowed at initial decision applied under the Special Rules for Terminal Illness; and what the recorded reasons were for those claims being so disallowed.
Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is claimed by people with a range of health conditions and disabilities, many of which are degenerative or life limiting and the Department treats the death of any claimant sympathetically. New Claims made under Special Rules for Terminal Illness (SRTI) are fast tracked and were being cleared in 4 working days on average in April 2020. This is compared to an average of 16 weeks for New Claims cleared under Normal Rules in April 2020, down by 62% from their peak of 42 weeks in July 2014.
The cause of death of claimants to PIP is not collated centrally by the Department. There is no evidence in this data to suggest someone’s reason for claiming PIP was the cause of their death and it would be misleading to suggest otherwise. People claim PIP for various reasons, the majority of which are non-life threatening.
There were 2,140 claimants who were disallowed at initial decision under Normal Rules or Special Rules who had registered a claim between April 2018 – October 2019 and died within 6 months of that registration. Of these, 280 originally applied under Special Rules and Table 1 shows a breakdown of these disallowances broken by the disallowance type. Please note that the Department holds no further data on the reasons claimants are disallowed PIP.
Table 1: Breakdown of disallowance reasons for claimants who originally registered under Special Rules, were disallowed and died within 6 months of registering a PIP claim
Outcome of PIP Claim | N |
Disallowed pre-referral to the Assessment Provider | 260 |
Disallowed pre-referral to the Assessment Provider - due to non-return of Part 2 within the time limit | 20 |
Disallowed post-referral to the Assessment Provider - Failed Assessment | - |
Disallowed post-referral to the Assessment Provider – Failed to Attend Assessment | - |
Total | 280 |
Notes
Source: PIP ADS
Under the Social Security (Notification of Deaths) Regulations 2012 and s125 of Social Security Administration Act 1992 date of death is provided to the Department for all registered deaths. Additionally, next of kin also provide information on the date of death of an individual and this information is used appropriately in the administration of Departmental benefits.