Family Fund statement on the Timms Review emerging recommendation on PIP 

Family Fund welcomes the publication yesterday of the Timms Review emerging recommendations for the future of Personal Independence Payment (PIP). These draft recommendations address how PIP processes should change, and what PIP should look like in the future. 

Family Fund welcomes the commitment to ensure that PIP remains a non-means tested cash award and recommendations to address concerns about difficulties communicating with the DWP, and perceptions of the decision-making process as obscure, untrustworthy and unreliable. 

However, we are disappointed that there was no clarity about any changes to the age at which a young person moves from Child DLA to PIP. Parents and carers have told Family Fund about the challenges of the transition process and their desire to choose the right time for their child. 

The Timms Review will now progress through its final stages of stakeholder workshops to refine the recommendations. We have actively fed in the experiences of families raising disabled children and young people. We hope their views and the proposals put forward by Family Fund and others will be listened to and acted upon. 

Families raising disabled or seriously ill children are more likely to live on low incomes, and deal daily with the compounded economic impact of rising costs of living, difficulties working and additional costs of disability. 

We call on the Secretary of State to ensure that PIP addresses the additional costs of living faced by disabled people and is part of a social security system that provides an adequate income to those in need of its support.