0:01 PIP you and your spending under investigation by the Department of Work and Pensions nicely and neatly called a survey. In this video, I am going to be breaking this down and going through this very new survey that's being sent out to all PIP claimments. And trust me when I tell you the government have made one of the biggest mistakes possible in this survey and what that could potentially mean for you. And by the way, if you're new here, don't forget we do have our website, the justicejournals.com, where I am sharing lots of my templates, tools, and resources from when I successfully sued
0:46 the Department of Work and Pensions for unlawful harassment and disability discrimination as a former employee when I was working there. Some of you are going to find those tools very interesting. And of course, those tools and resources can be used to help you guys and girls out, too. Now according to the department of work and pensions they claim that they have not made changes to PIP in over a decade. In fact I think it's from 1970 they said when it initially uh came into being and because of that they are deciding whether or not this is fit for purpose. Trust me, you need a cup of tea with this video because it's quite it's quite a shocker uh what they are planning to put
1:33 through. Now, I'm going to be using some of the government resources. And when I say they've been trying to do this for two years and I think it's highly likely that they're going to get this through uh because of the different things that they have put into the infrastructure and of course some of those which they have removed since the Supreme Court found the Department of Work and Pensions unlawful in December 2024 when they tried to uh make changes to the work capability assessment. If you didn't already know, and I will link this video here, that work capability assessment is what people need to give them access to disability related benefits. So, the Department of Work and Pensions have now decided to abolish
2:18 that altogether instead of taking on the recommendations made by the Supreme Court. Now, let's get into this survey. Now on the face value of things, the survey seems to be relatively inclusive. You think, oh, the department of work and pensions are asking my opinion about PIP uh and what uh you think about their ideas. But their ideas are more than ideas. is they've already been published in spring statements, the disability white paper, the green paper, and people are already having some of these changes apply to them, such as reassessments for PIP, people being sent for workplace
3:05 adjustment assessments before they can access things like access to work funding, and of course, let's not forget the voucher system. We will be going into all of this in big detail, so get ready for it. One of the biggest quotes from some of the recent publications from the Department of Work and Pensions, which everybody is deeply concerned about, myself included, are this one or is this one? We are considering whether different types of support might be more appropriate for some people than a monthly cash payment. This could include providing access to treatment of services directly or one-off grants to contribute to specific costs or
3:52 vouchers. Now, this statement actually refers to PIP. PIP stands for personal independence payment. It is a non- means-ested currently payment of benefit that people can apply for if they have a long-term health condition or if they are disabled, handicapped or consider themselves that have a neurody divergent condition that affects their life adversely. Uh you don't have to be working for this. You don't have to be on benefits for this. You could be working, not working. You could have a million pounds in the bank and you can still apply for it. The point I'm making here is that currently PIP is not a meansested benefit. However, when we
4:37 look at some of these changes that I'm going to be discussing in this video, that is very much likely to change along with some other things that the Department of Work and Pensions are attempting to bring in. And I'm going to get straight to the point on that and it is this here. The alternative to a cash transfer system. Right now, if people were eligible for PIP, they can get paid money every single month and they can choose how they spend that money. Although that is likely to come, you know, into a change. one with the new survey and two because of the comparisons that department of work and pensions has made uh regarding the UK and countries like the USA and uh New
5:24 Zealand. So here they are saying that they are potentially considering a catalog and shop scheme. This would be an approved list from which disabled people could choose items at a reduced or no cost. The second one is a voucher scheme. In this kind of scheme, disabled people could receive vouchers to contribute towards specific costs. And the other one is a receiptbased system and one-off grants. Now, I can tell you myself for somebody that helps a lot of people process uh and make applications for things like access to work that this is going to be rather problematic. Already the Department of Work and
6:10 Pensions is at least one year behind with access to work applications even when those applications have been approved. Payment takes 3 to four months. And some people just do not have the money to pay for some of the items that they require for their disability in advance to then go and claim it back. But isn't the question we should be asking more grounded in the rights of being disabled and having freedom of choice? One of the biggest issues I see with making PIP a meansested benefit, because at this point it will become a means-ested benefit, is that it simply
6:56 removes autonomy and risks a personal and flexible benefit into a onesizefits all. And that will limit lots of different people um from accessing equipment, resources, services and other things that they require to function better uh on a daily on a daily living so that they are not put at an unfair disadvantage. And isn't that what disability discrimination laws are all about? making sure that people who are disabled are not put at an unfair disadvantage. So I personally have a big question around that and given the fact that the department of work and pensions
7:42 make a lot of mistakes already in fact 4.2% 2% of errors that related to overpayments for uh claimants uh were down down to DWP employees themselves making those mistakes and in actual fact only 0.3% in 2024 uh and 2023 figures was down to claim and error big difference. Now whilst the department of work and pensions are making a case for change as they call it, they are using some rather interesting um analogies for that. And one of them is that they believe that they need to move towards a voucherbased system uh
8:29 because not everybody needs PIP money every single month. Uh, in fact, they said most people um will be using it just to make a couple of oneoff purchases and therefore they don't require the money every single month. Do you agree with this? Let me know in the comments. Now, as well as making changes to PIP, they're also going to be making changes as to how all of that is done alongside Universal Credit and all of the other changes that they are planning to bring in in November 2026. And one of those is something that was initiated in the green paper on Rishi Sunnak's entrance from Parliament, which was the health transformational program. This is
9:17 where the limited capability for work and no workrelated activity changes were hinted at and all sorts of other things. But basically, PIP is going to be managed by different case managers and from my understanding these case managers do not have any medical training and it's all going to be engineered or pioneered should I say through the health transformational program which is managed by Vanguard. So that's a third party company. Now DWP are saying that these case managers are going to be looking at your application and your information, but they're also questioning now whether or not that that is enough. They are
10:03 questioning whether or not going forward to be eligible for PIP, do you actually have a diagnosis? This is a big thing that we have seen a big point that we've seen already raised in regards to the new fourpoint rule uh in the daily living criteria descriptors of PIP. But now they have started looking at countries uh like America. Um, now correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't America have a massive addiction problem on fentinyl because of the lack of support for health and disability in their current system. I'm pretty sure
10:49 they do. But anyway, the Department of Work and Pensions have chosen to ignore that rather large important point and instead they are saying things like uh other countries such as the United States have a model of disability support that places more emphasis on a list of prescribed conditions. In comparison, the current PIP allegibility is based on an assessment of functional needs with no mandatory requirement for evidence of a specific health condition or disability provided by health care providers. So in short, what they are saying is maybe going forward there needs to be some a list of conditions.
11:36 If you've got those conditions, then you can qualify for PIP. Personally, I think that is one of the worst ideas possible. Um, because conditions affect everybody differently. And I think if we do that, then we are definitely winging into waters of putting certain people at a disadvantage just because they don't have a disability or a condition that is on the list compared to others that do. Again, guys, let me know what you think about this in the comments. Now, when it comes to the amount of money people require and how often they require it when it comes to a disability here, look, let's look at one of the questions in the survey. And don't worry, I'm we're going to have a good look at all of the survey in a moment. And trust me,
12:22 I think you're going to be surprised. So, question seven, do you think that if people only need the money to buy something once, they need to keep getting PIP? Again, we are making lots of assumptions about what people do with their money and what people don't do with their money, how they spend their money, and how they don't spend their money. And even though uh the actual criteria for PIP states that PIP can be used with extra living costs if you have both a long-term physical or mental health condition or disability or difficulty doing certain everyday tasks or getting around because of your condition. Now the issue with this is that let's just say you've got
13:10 social anxiety. Let's just say you've got depression. Uh let's just say you've got an eating disorder uh and you decide to have delivered to you because you don't feel like cooking or uh as a little treat to yourself because you've been depressed. Is that going to come under scrutiny? What about doing certain everyday tasks? You might have to have a cleaner. are they then going to decide how much you pay your cleaner, whether it's a good whether it's enough, whether it's too much, whether you need one um at all, uh because your condition states that perhaps you're depressed, but that shouldn't stop you from cleaning your house. I think uh this is going really
13:56 into waters that are very quite treacherous I think for people who have disabilities and really depend on this income. But now let's have a good old look at the survey. Now trust me when I say you are going to be really shocked at this survey because I've had a little look. Let's get into it. So the first few pages are all about you know what the survey is uh why they are doing it and in DWP's words they are saying that they will look at absolutely everything uh and they've made it into an easyto- read booklet. We're going to
14:41 get to this point uh in a moment. The big point I see here is that this is uh first of all not very disability inclusive because it's assuming everyone can write. It has got no electronic way of auditing or tracking exactly how many people have been sent out this uh this survey and how many people have returned it and of course the uh responses because had they have done that digitally they could have evidenced it. Who is going to be reading all of this? who is going to be processing all of the responses. So, that's already uh the biggie. And of course, they need everyone's answers back by Monday the 22nd of July. So, I've got uh questions
15:28 already um big questions over how um comprehensive this uh analysis of this survey is going to be. Uh, so let's go on. How we will use your information and what you tell us. Um, there we go. Um, uh, we're just going to skip to the good bit on the questions. So, the questions are, um, changing how we do PIP assessments. So, they're clearly they are going to be changing how they do the PIP assessments. We've already seen that in uh point four uh or sorry in the spring statement with the point the the four points uh new four points in addition to the current eligibility criteria and here lies the question I
16:16 think they're going to change the criteria here as well and increase different eligibility criterias. So the big one is what do you think about idea one? Please tell us here. Now I've had a look at this form and I've read it a few times. Now I'm not a silly person. I've got a degree in English. Even I'm struggling to understand this form. So idea one is here changing how we do PIP assessments. So there's quite a lot of questions there. Um, and then, um, they give you a little page there to write what you think. Let's go on to question two. What
17:01 do you think about get, uh, people getting PIP? Now, bear in mind that this survey is meant to be sent out to people that are in receipt of PIP. So, why are we talking if it's a survey sent to you, why is it in the third person? Why are we talking about other people? If it's about you and they want to about want to know about what you think because you're disabled, why are they not using the word you? That is very intrinsic when it comes to surveys and responses. Okay. So without have So there we go. What do you think about people getting PIP without having an assessment if they have certain health conditions or a disability? This would only be if they can show proof that they have a diagnosis. So already now we're talking
17:47 about people only getting PIP if they've got a diagnosis which is currently not the case. Anybody can apply for PIP without a diagnosis the same for access to work as long as you can fruitfully prove comprehensively how your condition affects you adversely. That is the only criteria. So question three, why do what do you think about not needing to have a review anymore? Please tell us there. Question four. Do you agree with people? Do you agree that people should show proof of their disability or health condition? Now, this is quite interesting because they've put down here proof would be things like a doctor, social worker. Many people include things like that already in
18:33 their PIP applications and they still end up going to tribunal because the Department of Work and Pensions choose not to believe what social workers and doctors and other people in multiddisciplinary teams might be writing to support an application for PIP. So, I'm rather interested that they've put that in there as a premise because they don't seem to believe it anyway. Um, please tell us more about your answer. Question five, do you do you agree that idea one is the right thing to do? Now, I've kind of already by this point forgotten exactly what idea one was. So, I'd have to scoot all the way to the top. I think the way this whole
19:19 questionnaire has been laid out is just ridiculous. But wait for it because we haven't come to their biggest error yet. So, just wait for it. Okay. Uh, question number six. How can we best check if someone needs PIP when their condition changes? Again, we're not using the word you. How can we best check if you need uh if your PIP changes, how can we best check that with you? you know, I mean, okay, so now we're on idea two, making changes to the PIP assessment we have now. So, they've got three things that they're looking at. Making sure the assessment is fair and looks at the right activities, what extra costs
20:06 people have because of their disability or health condition, and how long people are affected by their disability or health condition. And you can read more about that on pages 10 to 14 of their booklet. Uh, question seven. Do you think if people need do you think that if people only need the money to buy something once, they need to keep getting piped? Now, I don't know about anyone else. I really do not like uh this image of someone with a whole load of money in front of them. I actually think this is massively disrespectful to people who have got disabilities. Um, it's really putting a very negative premise on people who have disabilities
20:52 and it's also kind of calling people out uh saying that they are maybe untrustworthy uh that maybe they're taking money that they don't really need. And I think this whole um that whole generic that whole approach uh is kind of like uh divide and conquer. They're trying to play off uh people who don't have disabilities. So taxpayers and who are obviously contributing towards this towards people that you know that might not be working because of their disability. I just want to point out here though that any one can claim PIP. You can be working, not working, have a million pounds in the bank. Okay, but I really don't like uh question seven. But don't worry, we haven't come to the big mistake yet.
21:39 Question eight, thinking about people who need someone or something to tell them or remind them of what they need to do. Do you think needing a reminder shows that a person needs to keep getting pipped? Now, I think this is an insane question. We are not doctors. We do not know. But from my understanding of lots of different conditions, someone who has ADHD, if they don't, they might if they don't have it inside of them, they might just like it kind of doesn't exist. So, does that mean that they don't need PIP or does it mean that they do need PIP? What about people that have uh cognitive uh problems? Um, you know, there are all there's a whole like that
22:25 whole question is so overloaded. I think it's a ridiculous question to ask somebody who is not, you know, a medical doctor. Question nine, do you think people with different support needs have the same amount of extra costs? Again, it it is just a stupid question. How the hell would anybody know? How would you know what physiootherapy uh costs in um uh in in London for someone who's had a car crash to um you know the cost of physiootherapy um uh up in Birmingham um you know when you pulled your shoulder out it's such a stupid question but wait
23:11 for it we get to question 10. Do you think the assessment looks the right things? And now we get to the biggie. Tell us more about your answer to question 11. You might include things like, well, we're not going to even get to the things that we need to be including because do you know what? In this entire survey, they haven't got question 11. They haven't got question 11. The Department of Work and Pensions have sent out a survey and it doesn't have question 11 in it. They refer to question 11, but question 11 is not in
24:01 the survey. And do you know what? That question is perhaps one of the biggest ones. Tell us more about your answer to question 11. Now, we don't have question 11 in the survey because they haven't put it in there, but we can see what it hints at. If we should change any of the activities, if we should take out any of the activities, if we should look at any extra activities, please tell us here. But we don't have question 11. We go from question 10 to tell us more about your answer to question 11 which we don't have and then it goes on to question 12.
24:50 So when I say to people the level of incapability at the department of work and pensions on a very basic level like this is very worrying. And these are the people that consider themselves capable of bringing in a voucherbased system so that people with disabilities can have the support and adaptations that they require because of their health when they actually can't even create a uh 30page survey correctly. It really it beggars belief that they think they're capable of doing this thing and I for one think that they are
25:38 not. Okay, let's get on to the next questions. Idea three, changing how we pay PIP. People get PIP p people get PIP to pay to help pay for the things they need because of their disability or health condition. Well, actually that is not correct. That is not a correct uh statement. In fact, as you can see here, uh looking at the government's own website, it says there, personal independence payment can help with extra living costs if you have both. Uh and that is not what uh has been stated
26:23 there. So they've clearly said for things they need things is an item living costs is completely different. Right? So again um they've already skipped the hair uh so to speak. They've already uh because they want to bring in the the changes that in order to get in order to get PIP in order to push through the voucher system you need to have something. So in you have to have you know you have to need something an item um go or a like um or a therapy um go and have that pay for it and then get it back. Whereas that currently PIP is contribution based
27:10 towards someone's help for living costs. So it's a very very very delicate uh difference in the detail but it is still a very big thing when it comes to what they are actually uh trying to put through here. Okay, let's carry on. At the moment, people can choose what they spend pip on. And again, all of these images with dis disabled people and then handfuls of money I just find so offensive. I really do. I don't know about anybody else, but I find it really offensive. I mean, it's
27:55 almost given the connotation that, oh, if you're disabled, like you're on the make, you're getting all this money that you don't need. I mean it's absolutely disgusting. Whoever did this, whoever put this together or whoever passed this does not seem to have any understanding of moral or social justice. they don't seem to understand much about uh socio- linguistics which which I've definitely studied and I would really like strongly advise that anybody that wants to try and make changes in regards to disability reform at least bothers to educate themselves on what uh infographs, images and terminology to use to make sure that it is wholly inclusive and not discriminative because
28:41 I'm finding even the tone the language and the imagery used in this survey to be really offensive and discriminative. I mean, I don't know about anybody else, but this really getting my goat on this one. Let me know in the comments. I Let's just refocus. We want to know if PIP is the best way to s support people or if there are other things that might help. Question 13. What do you think the most important things people need to spend their money on? Who wrote this? Where's the grammar? What do you think? Like my days of English teaching are coming back to me. This is
29:27 appalling. This is the Department of Work and Pensions and they can't even formulate a simple sentence with the correct grammar. What do you think the most important things people need to spend their PIP money on is? Is is a definite article that's missing and why? I mean, it's ridiculous. It's just I'm just It doesn't surprise me. It does not surprise me. Again, these people could should not be managing uh disabled uh funding at this level. They shouldn't. We have looked at other ways we could support people instead of giving PIP. Here we go. Question 14. On
30:14 the next pages, tell us what you think about these new ways. This might be good things and bad things. Having a list for people to look through. This would be a list of things like wheelchairs, ramps, or shower curtains. Yeah. People could then choose what they need from the list. Oh my gosh. Here we go. Offering people a voucher instead of money. Now I think this is absolutely disgusting. When I was a young child, my mother unfortunately uh almost well did
31:01 lose our house uh through a divorce and uh we like we ended up having our school meals paid for with vouchers and our school uniform bought from Tesco's at the time on vouchers. I can tell you there is nothing worse when you're going through things or life is difficult to feel degraded. Degraded. Making people pay for things or putting people on a voucher uh is is a horrible experience. And also for people with disabilities, this 100% removes their freedom of choice. It also removes autonomy. It also removes just the entire question around inclusion and
31:47 diversity. It is absolutely disgusting. So there we have it. People could use a voucher to pay for things like equipment or services. People pe paying people back. People could buy things they need themselves. then we could give them the money back. How long do you think that's going to take? What is that process going to be like? And then it's going to be spot checking. Oh, right. Yeah, you've paid for Deliveroo. You spent 150 quid this month on Deliveroo, but I'm sorry, we don't approve payments to Deliveroo. You've got two hands. You can use
32:33 them. I should imagine it's going to come to that. Absolutely shocking. Let me know in the comments what you're thinking of. A grant is money we could give people one time to help them buy something. So, they've already decided one time. One time. I think my body was just reacting so badly to that. Excuse me. Question 15. Are there some people who get PIP to pay for help but need more support? Idea four, working together with other organizations. People with the same
33:20 disability or health condition might have different needs. Well, hallelujah. They've realized that some people who get PIP need more support with their health or care. Now, we want to work. We want to think about working more closely with local councils and the NHS. This would help us to make best use of our money. Now, this is very interesting because it is it or is it not the Department of Work and Pensions that fired a whole load of GPS under constructive dismissal uh when Richy Sunnak was in power? I'm pretty sure that they did. Hundreds of thousands of doctors were fired by the Department of Work and Pensions. And then that job of uh writing fitnotes and
34:06 deciding certain things was given over to Vanguard uh which is a uh who won a very big contract uh for the Department of Work and Pensions to process the disability claims and uh and Fitnotes and all the rest of it. So, I'm I'm a bit beused that they're now saying here that they why why who are they going to work closely with when they've already fired these doctors and put in another process? I mean, these processes aren't very clearly uh um communicated to people here. Maybe I need to do another video on that. Um now, question 16. Uh I don't like this question and I'll tell you the reason why. What support can people get from the NHS or local councils? This
34:52 might be things like the walking sticks, isn't it? Walking sticks and frames, help today to do things, travel, and getting around. Okay, let's just say you have um uh been through a traumatic experience. Let's just say as a result of that, you've got social anxiety, depression, PTSD, and you don't want to go out of your house. Let's just use your imagination on how you you know the types of things that could land someone in that situation. With question 16, would the premise then be, well, if you're not going to go and get the help, if you're not going to engage with the services, then you won't get that
35:38 money. Because when people are suffering with deep depression, trauma related things and other, you know, those types of um those types of health conditions, it is an a process. you can't force people into doing certain things. Uh that's not you know the only you know there are many many examples we can think of that not just relating to mental health conditions but other conditions as well. So I find that this is getting very very prescriptive and prescriptive um prescriptive processes that are run by agencies like this is never a good thing. What more could the NHS or local councils do to support people? I to be honest with you, if you are from the NHS, if you're one of those
36:24 doctors that got fired by the Department of Work and Pensions under constructive dismissal, because they wanted to take your salary and reinvest it all that money back into one of their private companies, Paul Vanguard. Please tell me what you think about this in the comments. How dare they? I mean, what an insult to the integrity of the bloody NHS. I mean, how dare they when they're directly removing the funding from the NHS and giving it to private companies that they've set up to manage the health and disability area of benefit reform? How dare they then come to disabled people and ask them what help and support they
37:09 require. NHS people, get your comments in. Get your comments in. Disgusting. We are thinking about looking about We are thinking about looking what's who wrote where is the at? It's missing the word at We are thinking about looking at what support people could get from the NHS, local councils, and PIP if we all work together. Question 18. How would this way of
37:55 working make things better for disabled people and people with a health condition? Ah, so here we go. I've got it. I've got it. This is the tactic. We're all working together now. The NHS is digitalized so we can access all of your notes. We're all working together with the council now. So that means all the services that you need and require as a disabled person. Instead of coming to us, you can just go to your council and go and get your vouchers. I can just see this coming. Let's just wait. Let's just wait and see if I'm right. Let's just wait. Shocking. Right. Question 19. Would this way of working mean people have to do less
38:42 assessments? Question 20. What are the most important support services in your local community? Are disabled people meant to be the yellow pages now as well? Again, you know what that is? It's factchecking to see whether or not you've actually gone and looked. Question 21. Because the premise there is if you really need those services, if you're really disabled, you would have gone and looked up those services, you would know what they are. And then that's when the transformational health service, as they've called it, uh will come in. Question 21. Thinking about people who have a health condition or disability, how much choice should local councils have about what support people need in their real area? I mean, did I not just
39:28 say that they're going to outroot this to the council? I mean, let's just remember back in the day when you used to have to go to the council for housing benefit. I was on income support once in my life anyway. You remember the cues. You remember people queuing up rages. You remember everybody like waiting and waiting and waiting for you, waiting and waiting for your rent, and to the point that you'd have to nearly get evicted because they hadn't processed your rent payments. uh before you actually got your payment. Is this what's going to happen with people's wheelchairs? Then is this what they're proposing to do? The same type of failed system that never worked before, whether it was housing now for people with disability. I mean, it's just
40:15 ridiculous. Absolutely insane. Um how question 22 finally about you. So, we've just talked about you as if you're a group of people in the third person for the last 29 pages. Now, on the final page, they're going to ask you, the disabled person, about you. Make it make sense. Somebody make this make sense. Apart from the fact that whoever wrote this clearly does not have good English, the grammar is appalling. The questions have got double clause as in someone with learning conditions would very very well, you know, struggle. And most importantly, they don't even have
41:02 question 11 in the survey. Insane. Insane. So, there we go, guys. Thank you for answering all of the questions. Let me know what you think about this. Honestly, I honestly do not know how Liz Kendall or Rachel Reeves have got the gore to stand up in front of people and consider themselves as being professionals and responsible for organizing any type of disability reform when they are putting out shoddy, ill-put together, babyike, full of error, missing
41:49 questioned surveys. I just I just cannot believe it. All I'm gonna say, ladies, if if you wanted a job in my company, you wouldn't get one. And if you were working for me, you'd have been fired. So, you know, absolutely shocking. But looking at the bigger picture, these are the people that are saying that they are capable and should be trusted to make decisions about your life and your disability and your financial well-being going forward that is directly and intrinsically related to your health and disability. Let me know guys in the comments what
42:36 you think. Shocking.
