Disability Solutions West Midlands has helped hundreds of people claim millions of pounds in personal independent payments (PIPs) after receiving finding from Stoke-on-Trent City Council.bBut the Hartshill-based charity’s council funding for the service ran out last September, meaning its benefits team has been unable to take on new clients. Crisis talks have now been held to try and secure further public funding for the work.

Around 14,000 people in Stoke-on-Trent have transferred, or will transfer, from the old disability living allowance to PIPs but many applicants complain that the PIPs assessments fail to properly evaluate their disability.

Disability Solutions claims a 98 per cent success rate at appeal and says it has secured £2.29 million of financial gains for disabled people in Stoke-on-Trent. It predicts this figure will rise to £10 million once all the cases funded through the initial council grant are concluded. Mandy Rollins, chief executive of Disability Solutions, believes that helping people claim what they are entitled to benefits the city council and Stoke-on-Trent as a whole.

She said: “Stoke-on-Trent has some unique health demands as a result of its industrial past. Because of the previous issues with welfare reform we were mindful that the move from DLA to PIPs could have a big impact on Stoke-on-Trent’s, with millions of pounds coming out of the local economy. People affected by this are going to have to be supported by the NHS or the local authority, and so from the council’s perspective this funding is about investing to save.”

The council agreed to support Disability Solutions, through the Wider Welfare Reform Group, to provide a disability benefits support service to help people as they migrated to PIPs. More than 550 have been helped with their claims, while 175 have been supported through an appeal against a PIPs decision.

The Government recently announced that it would be reviewing 1.6 million PIPs claims following a High Court ruling that said the assessments had discriminated against people with mental health conditions.

Read the original article on The Sentinel website here.