There were some key changes announced in the Budget yesterday, predominantly affecting welfare. We’ve provided a summary of these below:
PIP:
The most pertinent issue for us is around PIP. From 2017 people who score points for using aids and adaptations for managing toilet needs and dressing/undressing will receive half the number of points as before (going from 2 to 1). It’s not great news, but it could have been worse, particularly because the consultation announced before Christmas was talking about doing this for all daily living activities and cutting the amount of benefit a person receives if they get their points from aids and adaptations alone.
Also in the news the day before last – 74% of DLA reassessments are qualifying for PIP.
ESA:
For people in the WRAG group in ESA there are some measures mentioned but the House of Commons have refused the House of Lord’s request to carry out an equality impact assessment of the upcoming change which will see those in the WRAG group receive the same amount as people on JSA and result in substantial decrease in income.
HMRC:
Also for Payroll HMRC are investing in their customer service support.
For more information, please click here to see Budget 2016 Doocuments from www.gov.uk.