The Timms Review said Personal Independence Payment is no longer fit for purpose when it published its interim report on Thursday 9 July 2026. The first comprehensive review of the benefit since 2013 drew on more than 38,000 responses to the Call for Evidence and heard from nearly 40,000 people and organisations across the country.
The Timms Review report
The report says many disabled people value Personal Independence Payment as a cash benefit that helps meet the extra costs of disability and supports everyday life. It also says the same system can create barriers to work, physical activity and community life, with the assessment described as dehumanising and stressful.
That mix is central to the review’s finding. A benefit can be widely used and still fail the people it is meant to support if the process around it makes access harder or leaves some claimants struggling to take part in work, social and community life.
Call for Evidence responses
The review’s evidence base is unusually large for a government exercise. More than 38,000 responses came through the Call for Evidence, and the report says the review heard from nearly 40,000 people and organisations across the country. A Timms Review Pip Finds Personal Independence Payment Not Fit for purpose summary captures the core finding in one place, but the underlying report goes further by separating value from ease of access.
Some disabled people said Personal Independence Payment helps them meet the extra costs of disability and take part in everyday life. Others said it creates barriers to participating fully in work, social and community life, especially for people with fluctuating conditions, less visible conditions or multiple conditions.
Recommendations for autumn 2026
The report does not set out the reform package yet. That will come in the Recommendations for autumn 2026, which is the next step for readers who receive or may need Personal Independence Payment. For them, the key point now is that the government’s own review has moved the debate from whether the system needs change to how the change should be designed.
The open question is what the autumn Recommendations for will do for people whose conditions vary, are harder to see, or come in combination, because those are the groups the report says face the clearest barriers.
