Motability farce shows how benefit savings are squandered on appeals

Carly Tait, who has cerebral palsy and has been told she’s been rejected for the enhanced mobility rate of PIP and subsequently will lose her Motability car. Photograph: Jon Super for the Guardian

Carly Tait will hopefully win her appeal to retain her Motability car (Wheels taken off Paralympic bid, 6 April): 60% of appeals by applicants against decisions on personal independence payments (PIP) succeed. The success rate at appeal for employment and support allowance – the earnings-replacement benefit for those too ill to work – is similar. These absurdly high success rates reflect the dismal quality of many of the initial assessments carried out by private companies, and lazy decision-making by the Department for Work and Pensions on the basis of these companies’ reports. Savings from mean-spirited and life-destroying measures to cut expenditure on benefits are being squandered on appeals many of which should not have been necessary and which cost tens of millions of pounds a year in public funds. They are, besides, hugely stressful for appellants.
Patricia de Wolfe
London

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