Ulster Unionist MLA Mike Nesbitt has warned the Department for Communities (DfC) that it needs to get to grips with the current crisis in PIP assessment, and not seek to involve the Health Department as a convenient excuse for DfC and Capita failures.   

Mike Nesbitt said:

“The scale of the failure by Capita in assessing Personal Independence Payment (PIP) applications was laid bare last week in a report by the NI Public Services Ombudsman, resulting in ‘a finding of systemic maladministration’ and is the responsibility of the Department and Minister for Communities to resolve.

“Earlier today in the Assembly a Sinn Fein member - Sinead Ennis – said that the Communities Minister is committed to bringing PIP assessments back in-house as soon as it is practicably possible and ‘her intention for health professionals in the Department to carry out those assessments.’ Ms Ennis also said that the Communities Minister ‘requires resources and the support and partnership of the Department of Health to do that. Of course, that was not possible due to the current pandemic.’

“I’m sure the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland would agree with me that the Health Minister and his Department have quite enough to be getting on with at the present time.

“With reference to Ms Ennis’s statement that we need to bring the assessments back in-house, I would say that we have only recently completed a voluntary exit scheme to reduce the headcount of our Civil Service, which cost tens of millions of pounds. Is she seriously suggesting we now spend millions more reversing that trend with a recruitment campaign to boost the headcount yet again, not to mention the additional delay while we recruit ‘in house’ expertise?

“There is a very simple answer for the Department for Communities regarding the PIP failures: get your act together and sort it out.”