The Timms Review is right about PIP - but its reforms could create new barriers

“Our message is simple: PIP is not working.” This statement from the co-chairs of the recently published interim Timms Review is right about one thing; Personal Independence Payment, or PIP, isn't working.

The interim report unambiguously presents a case for an overhaul of the current disability welfare benefit system, but with a focus on digital-first and using PIP as proof of disability, it appears to be moving towards replacing one flawed system with another.

Why PIP matters beyond disability payments

PIP is a non-means-tested benefit intended to help meet the additional costs of disability and long-term health conditions. In practice it has become far more than that, acting as a gateway to a wide range of other support including Carer's Allowance and local authority or government benefits which require a claimant to be receiving PIP.

The review's diagnosis is largely correct

The Timms Review was commissioned following a lack of support from Parliament to proposed changes to PIP eligibility in 2025.

This interim report does not put forward recommendations at this stage – the full report is due in Autumn 2026 - but focuses on the purpose of PIP, eligibility and fairness, the claimant experience and the changing wider context and impacts on PIP.

If the final report from the Timms Review is similar in tone to its interim report, then we can expect a robust and critical takedown of the current situation with PIP.

Many of the report's criticisms - including narrow descriptors, poor treatment of fluctuating conditions and inaccessible application processes - have been raised for years by disabled people's organisations, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and through my own analysis of how the PIP application process is inaccessible and not fit for purpose

Unfortunately, from analysing the discussions in the interim report of the Timms Review around both technology and the status of PIP as a barrier to other disability services, we can expect at least two recommendations that will serve as a detriment to many PIP claimants rather than an improvement.

A digital-first system risks excluding disabled people

Through its reference to digital and online PIP applications being introduced through a phased approach, but not yet being universally available, we can see the groundwork being set to recommend that the government move PIP (or its potential replacement) to a Digital by Default model.

This an approach to public services in which the primary way to apply, communicate and manage claims is online, so internet connection and computer literacy skills would become a requisite for applications.

With a reported 50% of non-internet using adults having a disability, and 32% of those with learning disabilities lacking basic digital skills, this will only serve to make potential PIP claimants fall at the first hurdle.

Concerns in this area are compounded with the Timms Review’s consideration of the use of AI and technology to improve and standardise the evidence gathering process of PIP applications.

With this, the already faceless decision-making process for PIP would become even more opaque.Further, with the Timms Review considering the role of AI in making submissions, claimants will find it even harder to articulate in their own words how their disability affects them.

This would only further the perception of PIP as dehumanising.

One assessment cannot determine every form of support

Through questioning what role the [PIP] assessment could and should play in unlocking support in addition to PIP, the Timms Report seems positioned to recommend a form of flattening in the process through which disabled people can access multiple forms of support.

The interim report makes explicit that, following the removal of the Work Capability Assessment, an assessment that decided whether a claimant can or can’t work, the outcomes of a PIP assessment could instead be used to make this decision.

This raises key concerns as to how an assessment for functional capabilities and lack of capacity of daily living activities in PIP can also determine fitness for work. It begs the question as to whether anyone found ‘not disabled enough’ for PIP would also be automatically found fit for work.

This approach flies in the face of the Timms Review’s own concern around PIP currently acting as a prerequisite to accessing additional forms of disability welfare support such as the Blue Badge scheme or the health element of Universal Credit through its framing of PIP as a passport to other support.

While the Timms Review is right to highlight that government departments and civil society often treat PIP eligibility as proof of disability, the solution is not to strengthen that link further.

Rather, the Timms Review should recommend the opposite, having organisations and departments establish their own criteria for disability away from the limiting definition established by PIP.

The opportunity - and the risk - ahead

There is still a long way to go before we can expect to see any official movement with the law and policy governing PIP. We must first wait for the publication of the final Timms Review report and then wait longer to see the weight that the Department for Work and Pensions places upon them.

As the interim report states, it will ultimately be for the Secretary of State to decide how the Review’s recommendations are taken forward.

At each stage, we must consider the potential impact of each suggestion and recommendation made by the Timms Review and analyse whether their implementation would be a help or a hindrance to disabled people in the UK.

For now, we give a cautious but optimistic nod to the Timms Review steering group for collating and explicating the collective concerns and problems raised against PIP over the last thirteen years in their interim report, which should set the stage for meaningful change in the near future.

Dr Steve Atkin-Teillet, lecturer at Nottingham Law School and expert in disability and welfare law in the UK and Republic of Ireland.