Key points
A summary of the main stories of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) at February 2023:
- There are 185,330 claims in payment, an increase of 2.4% from November 2022.
- For claims made under Normal Rules that included a medical assessment the award rate is 68%.
- The award rate for claims made under Normal Rules, excluding withdrawn claims is 60%.
- 44% of claims in payment have main medical conditions categorised under ‘Psychiatric disorders (Mental Illness)’.
Since PIP was introduced in Northern Ireland in June 2016, there have been 317,030 registrations to claim PIP, and 302,890 claims cleared. The average (median) clearance time for claims is 14 weeks.
Introduction
PIP helps with some of the extra costs caused by long term disability, ill health or terminal ill health. From 20th June 2016, the Department for Communities (DfC) began to replace Disability Living Allowance (DLA) for working age people with PIP.
This quarterly summary contains official National Statistics on PIP in Northern Ireland. Key information is included on the nature of the award and characteristics of claims in payment as well as registrations, clearances, awards and mandatory reconsiderations in NI since June 2016.
Figures are rounded to the nearest 10 and percentages to the nearest 1%. The DLA to PIP migration process for working age claimants was completed by the end of November 2019, therefore there are no further separate updates to reassessment outcome figures for working age claimants. DLA claimants turning 16 will continue to be reassessed for PIP.
Further information and more detailed statistics are available in the
accompanying Supplementary Tables workbook on the Department
for Communities (DfC) PIP Statistics website, which contains many
tables with breakdowns by new claims and reassessments, as well as by
normal rules and special rules for the end of life (SREL). Tables are
provided on registrations, clearances, clearance times, award outcome,
award rates, claims in payment, mandatory reconsiderations, and award
reviews. A number of these tables also include time series information.
Glossary of Terms
Registration - Claimant registers an application to claim PIP.
Clearance - DfC decision maker has determined whether the claimant should or should not be awarded PIP.
Clearance Time - The time between registration or referral to the Assessment Provider (AP) and clearance of the case.
Award - Claimant has been awarded PIP.
New Claim - A claim to PIP which does not originate from an existing DLA claim.
Reassessment - DLA claim that has been reassessed for PIP, as opposed to a new claim.
Special Rules for End of Life (SREL; previously SRTI) - A special fast-track PIP claim procedure for anyone approaching the end of their life due to a progressive disease and are not expected to live more than 12 months.
Normal Rules - Claims not being processed under ‘Special Rules for End of Life (SREL)’.
Mandatory Reconsideration - Claimant wishes to dispute a decision made on their claim and requests DfC to reconsider the decision.
PIP Claims Process
End to End Process of PIP (Registration to Payment)
Professional Services Unit (PSU) measure the full end-to-end process (from claim registration to decision/payment) and the Assessment Provider (AP) referral to end process (which excludes the time the claim is with the claimant). For more details please refer to the “About these statistics” section.
Registrations, Clearances and Awards
Clearances and awards statistics below do not include awards given as a result of mandatory reconsiderations or appeals. Claims in payment do include those who have been awarded PIP after the mandatory reconsideration or appeal.
By the end of February 2023, there were 317,030 PIP claims registered. Of these, 302,890 had been cleared including 3,730 (1%) ‘Special Rules for the End of Life’ (SREL) claims. (Full breakdowns of registration figures from June 2016 can be found in Table 1 of the Supplementary Tables.)
There were 185,330 Claims in Payment at February 2023 (Full breakdowns of figures for Claims in Payment since June 2016 can be found in Table 19 of the Supplementary Tables.)
New Claim Award Rates (excluding claims withdrawn by claimant before decision) between June 2016 and February 2023 are as follows:
All new claims made under Normal Rules - 50%
New claims made under Normal Rules that included a medical assessment - 62%
(Full breakdowns of figures for Award Rates and Award Outcomes since June 2016 can be found in Tables 9 to 18 of the Supplementary Tables.)
Figure 1: Cumulative Registrations, Clearances and Claims in Payment
Figure 2: Monthly Registrations, Clearances and Awards
Average Clearance Periods
Average clearance periods are reported in weeks and calculated from date of claim being registered on the PIP computer system until a decision is cleared. From registration to clearance, the average clearance period was 14 weeks between June 2016 and February 2023, and was 20 weeks at February 2023. From referral to the assessment provider to clearance, the average clearance period was 10 weeks between June 2016 and February 2023, and was 17 weeks at February 2023.
Figure 3 shows the average clearance periods for the time taken from registration to a decision being cleared, as well as from referral to assessment provider to a decision being cleared. (Full breakdowns of figures relating to clearance periods are available in Tables 4 and 5 in the Supplementary Tables.)
Figure 3: Average (median) Clearance Period (weeks), Claims Cleared by Month
Characteristics of Claims
There are currently 185,330 PIP claims in payment.
41% of claims in payment are awarded the enhanced rate for both components. Full breakdowns of awards for claims in payment from June 2016 to February 2023 can be found in Table 20 - 23 of the Supplementary Tables.
Figure 4: Claims in Payment by Award Level
Medical conditions
44% (81,990) of all claims in payment have Psychiatric disorders (Mental Illness) as the main disabling condition. Further details and breakdown on PIP medical conditions are included in Tables 27 - 29 in the accompanying Supplementary Tables workbook.
Note, percentages are rounded to the nearest 1% and therefore may not sum to totals.(Full breakdowns of awards for claims in payment from June 2016 can be found in Table 20 of the Supplementary Tables.)
Figure 5: Main Disabling Condition Categories of Claims in Payment
Award Rates by Medical Category
Since June 2016, claims made with the recorded medical category “Malignant disease (Cancers)” have the highest award rate. The five medical categories with highest award rates are shown in Figure 6 below. Rates are shown for: (i) only claims that have not been withdrawn by the claimant before a decision was made; and (ii) only claims that included a medical assessment.
Figure 6: Medical Condition Categories with the highest award rates
Mandatory Reconsiderations
29% of PIP decisions to date have resulted in a request for reconsideration.
Claimants who wish to dispute their decision on their PIP claim can ask DfC to reconsider the decision. This is a ‘Mandatory Reconsideration’ (MR.). Its purpose is to consider the grounds for the dispute and complete a review of the initial decision. MRs can arise for various reasons such as omitting to tell DfC about relevant evidence during the initial decision making process or not returning forms required as part of the claim. MRs can also be instigated by the Department. A MR must be completed before an appeal is made and lodged with The Appeals Service.
The number of MRs requested tends to move in line with the number of claims cleared. Main points in MRs are as follows:
From June 2016 to the end of February 2023, 87,880 MRs had been registered.
There have been 83,130 MRs cleared between June 2016 and February 2023 (Excluding withdrawn / cancelled MRs).
For MRs cleared in February 2023, the average time to process MRs from registration to clearance was 28 calendar days.
(Further breakdowns and figures relating to Mandatory Reconsiderations since June 2016 are included in Tables 30-33 of the Supplementary Tables.)
Figure 7: Reconsiderations by Month: Registrations and Clearances
The majority of reconsiderations result in no change to the
award.
Between June 2016 and February 2023, 77% of mandatory reconsiderations resulted in no change to the award.
Up to February 2023 the clearance time for MRs was 33 calendar days (Excluding withdrawn/cancelled MRs).
New Decision - Award Changed: The Reconsideration instigated by the Claimant or Department has been completed and a conclusion is recorded which indicates that there has been a new decision issued and the award has been changed.
New Decision - Award Unchanged: The Reconsideration instigated by the Claimant or Department has been completed and a conclusion is recorded which indicates that there has been a new decision issued but the award remains unchanged.
Further details on Mandatory Reconsideration figures, including breakdowns by New Claims and Reassessed claims, can be found in Table 30-33 in the accompanying Supplementary Tables workbook.
Figure 8: Mandatory Reconsiderations Outcomes
About These Statistics
PIP was introduced in NI on 20th June 2016 for all new claims and where the award period for DLA had come to an end. From December 2016, the main reassessment of all existing working age DLA claims began with claimants selected at random. This process was completed in November 2019.
This quarterly summary contains statistics on PIP registrations, clearances, awards, numbers of claims in payment and mandatory reconsiderations since June 2016 in Northern Ireland. All figures are rounded to the nearest 10 and as a result may not sum to stated totals.
PIP figures contained within the publication and supplementary tables are subject to scheduled revisions. This is to account for retrospective actions on the PIP Computer System (PIPCS). These revisions are performed in accordance with T3.9 of the UK Statistics Authority Code of Practice for Statistics.
‘Monthly claims in payment’ refers to the number of PIP claims in payment on the last day of the month. Any figures relating to claims in payment will include claims which may have been changed as a result of a mandatory reconsideration or appeal. Figures relating to registrations, clearances and award rates are based on the initial decision and do not take account of any awards changed as a result of mandatory reconsiderations or appeal.
Data Quality Summary
The production and processes involved in these statistics have been assessed and reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) and Office of National Statistics, and subsequently awarded the designation of National Statistics Status. Further details can be found on the OSR web page here.
Data source and supplier: Data from the PIPCS are transferred to the PIP Atomic Data Store held by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). A suite of data tables, representing a 100% population of PIP claimants with a postcode in Northern Ireland, are supplied to the Department for Communities (DfC) by DWP using approved high secure transfers. For quality management, routine checks and measures include: checks on files received that names, sizes and figures contained within are as expected; any variations are investigated and if necessary data suppliers are contacted; PSU Database Management Team remove personal or sensitive variables before loading files onto a restricted access secure server database for use by internal analysts; DWP will inform DfC if there are any changes or issues with the PIPCS and vice versa.
Limitations and other issues: Although analysts in DfC receive a large suite of data tables on a monthly basis from DWP, they do not have access to all data tables relating to PIP held by DWP due to the large volumes of data created by the PIPCS. This can limit the information that DfC analysts can create for use regarding PIP statistics. In some circumstances, DfC will request particular information to be extracted by DWP analysts where appropriate and possible. Errors may occasionally arise due to IT system errors or human error.
Creation of data tables for analytical and statistical purposes: Data arrives with DfC in structures that do not provide immediate insight to PIP figures in Northern Ireland. In order to create meaningful material for analysis and reporting, information must be collated from multiple variables across the various tables supplied and connected using unique linking variables. Further details on the creation of data tables and data quality can be found in the ‘Data Quality and Methodology’ page here.
Mandatory Reconsiderations
The Department commenced an administrative exercise on 28th June 2018 to review all current PIP claims to check if customers are eligible for more support as a result of two Upper Tier Tribunal judgements in Great Britain. The outcomes from the review exercise are captured under both the new claims and the reassessed DLA reconsiderations categories. As the review exercise relates only to the application of these two judgements it resulted in higher rates of ‘no change to the award’. Consequently this leads to a higher overall proportion of mandatory reconsiderations resulting in ‘no change to the award’.
Revisions to Publication
February 2020 - The reassessment from DLA to PIP for working age claimants was completed in November 2019. The November 2019 release (published February 2020) includes the final publication of information on working age reassessment outcomes and can be viewed at: https://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/publications/personal-independence-payment-statistics-november-2019.
DfC endeavour to provide the most relevant statistics in this published bulletin and the accompanying supplementary tables. As such, both undergo changes to content and design periodically. The action plan for changes and additions to the published statistics is available here.
Feedback
We would appreciate if you completed a short questionnaire to give us your views on the publication. An online version of this questionnaire is available at the following link: http://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/PIP_Stats_User_Survey/.
Further Information
For more information on PIP statistics, including detailed tables, please visit: https://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/articles/personal-independence-payment-statistics.
Alternatively, contact DfC Professional Services Unit at: psu@communities-ni.gov.uk.
For more information on PIP in general, please visit: https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/personal-independence-payment.
To view PIP statistics for Great Britain, please visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/personal-independence-payment-statistics.
National Statistics statement
National Statistics status means that our statistics meet the highest standards of trustworthiness, quality and public value, and it is our responsibility to maintain compliance with these standards.
PIP Statistics for Northern Ireland underwent a full assessment by the Office for Statistics Regulation against the Code of Practice in May 2021. The Office for Statistics Regulation assessment report provides details of the findings.
Following the Office for Statistics Regulation assessment, Confirmation of National Statistics Designation for Personal Independence Payment Statistics for Northern Ireland was provided in October 2021. Since the assessment by the Office for Statistics Regulation, we have continued to comply with the Code of Practice for Statistics, and have added further information in relation to award rates, claims in payment by Assembly Area, duration of awards, and mandatory reconsideration clearance times.