Adult Disability Payment has started to replace Personal Independence Payment (PIP) for new claimants in 13 council areas across Scotland. The launch of the new benefit means that people of working age with a disability, long-term illness or physical or mental health condition, living in these areas can now apply for disability assistance to Social Security Scotland instead of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
Social Security Scotland recently announced that it “will never use the private sector to carry out health assessments and there won’t be any degrading functional examinations such as asking a client to ‘touch their toes’,” and that new claimants could have an award decision letter within 10 weeks of applying for the benefit. However, this will only be possible if they have received your completed application and all the information they need to make a decision.
By comparison, the latest figures released by the DWP show that the end-to-end turnaround time for new PIP applications is around 20 weeks.
