Guidance

Moving from DLA to PIP: changes to PIP law from 23 November 2017

Updated 22 May 2024

Background

This exercise ran from December 2018 to May 2019.

If you got Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and then applied for Personal Independence Payment (PIP), you continued to get DLA until 28 days after DWP made a decision about your PIP application.

However, we stopped your DLA payments and your PIP claim if you did not:

  • go to a face-to-face assessment when we asked you to, or
  • follow the PIP claim process

Change to PIP law

We reinstated your DLA if we or a tribunal found you had ‘good reason’ not to:

  • go to a face-to-face PIP assessment when we asked you to, or
  • provide the information or evidence we asked for

This change applied to decisions DWP made about people moving from DLA to PIP from 23 November 2017.

What this meant for you

If you were getting PIP

We looked again at claims we decided on or after 23 November 2017 until 17 December 2018 to check if this change meant you may have been eligible for more DLA.

If you were applying for PIP

If you got DLA and had applied for PIP, you continued to get DLA until 28 days after DWP had made a decision about your PIP claim. You still had to have a face-to-face assessment if we asked you to and continue to follow the claims process. We stopped your DLA and your PIP claim if you did not go to a face-to-face assessment when we asked you to, or if you did not follow the claims process.

But we reinstated your DLA if we decided to accept your reasons for not going to a PIP assessment or not following the PIP claims process.

This change was applied from 17 December 2017.

The change is as a result of an Upper Tribunal judgment.

Help with PIP

You can contact a local support organisation or Citizens Advice to get help understanding PIP.