Dec 3rd 2016, 21:25

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PERSONAL INDEPENDENCE PAYMENT:
A NEW SECOND EDITION IN THE ESTABLISHED CPAG ADVICE SERIES

An appreciation by Phillip Taylor MBE and Elizabeth Taylor of Richmond Green Chambers


The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) have published a second edition of their work on personal independence payments to meet the need of claimants. It is another guide in their excellent benefits series of books. Personal independence payment is a defined as “a benefit for people with a disability or long-term health condition” and you can find out what it may mean for you in this title.

CPAG describes this 150-page manual as a “popular guide to personal independence payment” and it “tells you all you need to know about the benefit in a clear, accessible and easy to follow way”.

It’s an essential guide which has been updated to include all the changes since its introduction in April 2013, including transfers from disability living allowance, this new edition includes information on who is entitled to the benefit and how to claim.

As to be expected, there are plenty of practical tips and examples. The author, Jon Shaw, who is a welfare rights worker for CPAG in Scotland, has updated all the essential information you need in one quick and comprehensive guide which follows the house style CPAG uses for these publications.

The work is available for anybody who wants to know about how to claim a payment, whether for yourself or for somebody else. The format is simple and precise, setting out the process and explaining how you are assessed and what the “qualifying conditions” are. There are plenty of examples throughout the book giving the reader illustrations on how the rules apply in practice for claimants facing different conditions.

What CPAG give us here is advice on what may affect you if you are currently receiving a disability living allowance. It is a manual which “sets out what happens if you go into hospital or a care home, and how personal independence payment can be a ‘passport’ to other benefits”. The guide also gives you an explanation of what to do if your condition changes, and the way in which you can challenge a decision which you do not agree with. We found the comprehensive index most helpful to find the information you are seeking.

As the author says, “it is essential to be well prepared” and that is exactly what this book gives you here. The payment is gradually replacing the disability living allowance for adults under 65 years of age. To receive the payment, you should complete a detailed questionnaire and, generally, attend a face-to-face assessment. These interviews can be daunting because it is a generally held view that fewer people will qualify in future so the guide should be something any claimant may wish to read prior to making a claim.

To say this guide and its sister publications from CPAG improve the lives of low-income families is somewhat of an understatement but the service which CPAG gives claimants is unmatched in its clarity and effectiveness as fundamental support devices for the vulnerable during testing times in this decade of austerity.

The law is as stated as at 2016.