The UK’s Labour government has published a report on the findings of an investigation it conducted in to Personal Independence Payments. The main outcome was that PIP was judged to be not fit for purpose but made no recommendations on how the system could be fixed. The report was constructed following a survey of around thirty-eight thousand recipients of the benefit and looked at what responses they gave to questions along with how they performed in different workshops.

Having been initially introduced in 2013, there have been many issues involving the new benefit including problems with the assessment process which judges what support to give people. This has been widely criticized for having major flaws including a failure to accommodate fluctuating conditions. It is also heavily reliant on superficial observations made by assessors rather than being based on medical facts. It uses a very complex scoring process and forces claimants to focus on what they can’t do.

According to the report, PIP remains a vital financial lifeline for many disabled people and helps them cover additional costs which they may incur as a result of having their disability. This helps them to take part in work, education and community life. Many people feared losing the benefit due to reassessments which affected their confidence to work or take part in every day activities.

Almost all of those who took part in the study described the claims process in a negative manner and assessments were commonly described as being dehumanising, degrading and stressful.

The review notes that around 24% of working-age people now report living with a disability, compared with fewer than 17% in 2013/14. It says disability has risen particularly quickly among younger adults and that mental health conditions have become more common, meaning PIP has not kept pace with how disability has changed over the past decade.

Disability organisations broadly welcomed the report’s recognition that the current system is failing many claimants. Common priorities include a more humane assessment process, better recognition of fluctuating and invisible conditions, fewer unnecessary reassessments, improved assessor training and greater reliance on supporting medical evidence.

Disability Rights UK said the interim report contained “no surprises” for disabled people but warned “huge questions remain about where the Review is heading”. It welcomed recognition that PIP is paid at inadequate levels, that the eligibility process is flawed and that claimants often face “hostile and cumbersome processes”, but said the review now needs to deliver meaningful reform rather than simply diagnose the problems.

An ongoing worry with many disability organisations regarding PIP is that there has been widespread agreement that the current assessment system is failing many disabled people, and growing concern within government about the long-term cost of disability benefits. How ministers balance those objectives is likely to be one of the key issues when the final recommendations are published later this year.

This interim report does not provide recommendations – these will be set out in our final report in the autumn. Instead, it provides an update from the steering group and a public account of our work to date. It outlines how the Review is being conducted, summarises the evidence we have gathered and considered so far, highlights where our thinking is developing, and identifies the areas that require further work before recommendations can be made.

PIP was designed to support people with the extra costs of living with a long-term health condition or disability and help them to live more independently. The functional assessment was introduced to consider an individual’s ability to carry out key everyday activities. The activities and descriptors for PIP were developed by DWP through extensive public consultation and with the help of an independent cross-disciplinary panel of experts. The aim was to ensure that priority in the benefit went to those individuals who are least able to carry out everyday activities, with the enhanced rates of the daily living and mobility components going to those individuals assessed to have the highest level of need.