Face-to-face assessments for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claims were suspended in March by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
This was part of the UK Government's measures to combat coronavirus.
These have been replaced with telephone and paper-based assessments for everyone making a new claim for PIP and will continue until further notice, the Daily Record reports.
However, many people waiting on their telephone assessment may not be aware of a crucial change that has taken place.
The DWP asks Independent Assessment Services (IAS) or Capita to assess people who are claiming PIP.
IAS provide PIP assessments in Scotland, the North East and North West of England, London, the South East, East of England and South West England.
Capita carries out PIP assessments for DWP in Central England, Wales and on behalf of the SSA in Northern Ireland.
During a meeting with the Work and Pensions Committee earlier this week, Thérèse Coffey, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions confirmed that audio recording has now started on some telephone assessments.
Ms Coffey said: “IAS started audio recording of telephone assessments on September 21, but that has not yet started with Capita.”
She continued: “That is under, I can assure you, active management to get Capita going quickly on this.”
The DWP insists that assessments are only recorded following an explicit request from the claimant themselves and that IAS only started a "focused pilot" on September 21.
Another change made to telephone assessments is the ability for third party callers to dial in and offer support to the claimant.
Ms Coffey explained: “We’ve now made it possible, as far as I’m aware, that third parties can join the PIP assessments to kind of help people.”
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions was referring to ‘Help To Claim’ which is a service offered by Citizens Advice in Scotland and across the UK, which offers independent support for people making benefit claims.
During the meeting, Ms Coffey also explained how other options for conducting PIP assessments are being explored, including video conferencing.
Five hundred people are due to be assessed by video call as part of an initial testing phase by the DWP.
