Benefit and Works said earlier this week that IAS (Atos) began audio recording all PIP telephone assessments from 21 September.
This was based on evidence that Therese Coffey, secretary of state for work and pensions, gave the Work and Pensions Committee on 30 September.
However, the DWP have now informed them that claimants must ask to have their assessment recorded, it will not be done automatically.
You are likely to need to arrange this in advance. The earlier you request a recording the better, as a new appointment may need to be arranged.
A DWP spokesperson told us “This is not a pilot and is something that will eventually be rolled out nationally. The process is just not yet live in areas covered by Capita but will be shortly.”
However it now seems that assessments are being cancelled because assessors don’t want to be recorded although we can’t begin to imagine why that might be.
Benefits and Work say they may still consider it sensible to record the assessment yourself just in case the DWPs recording goes astray. Though you will need to do this covertly as the DWP will not give permission.
Please let us know about your experiences of asking for a recording of your PIP assessment at mail@dpac.uk.net
We will also pass any information onto Benefits and Work who are also interested in collating this information.
I had a recording of my phone assessment and the written report was inaccurate and left some things out entirely. Just now I got a call from DWP mandatory reconsideration dept and the guy said he had never listened to a recording by the assessors in a claim dispute and he didn’t think that he would be allowed to get the recording off them and listen to it. So…what is the point in these recordings exactly? I thought I was ensuring my report would be accurate by having a recording made but the assessor wrote a misleading report with pertinent information missing probably knowing she could get away with it because the recordings are not given out to the DWP.
I asked for the phone call to be recorded, they said it wasn’t possible.
assessors did not want to be recorded, wonder why recorded evidence counting against them when it comes to a panel hearing maybe?