Ministers have opened the next stage of the Timms Review into Personal Independence Payment, with 15 workshops due to take place across the UK before the review delivers its final report in autumn 2026. According to the GOV.UK announcement, applications opened at 10am on Wednesday 12 August 2026. The sessions will be held online and in person during September and October, giving the review a formal route to test emerging recommendations with people who deal with PIP in day-to-day life.
The exercise follows the review's Interim Report, which found that PIP is no longer fit for purpose. Evidence gathered so far suggests that, while the benefit remains widely valued, the assessment and decision-making process can itself create barriers to participation and independence. The government summary of that evidence is stark. Many respondents described the process as stressful and dehumanising, indicating that the final phase of the review is focused not only on entitlement but also on how the system operates in practice.
The workshops are aimed mainly at disabled people and people with long-term health conditions. The government has also confirmed that carers, family members of disabled people and support workers may register interest, widening the pool beyond claimants alone. No prior experience of taking part in a government review is required. That matters because the steering group is now moving from evidence collection to testing draft recommendations against lived experience, practical barriers and the realities of making or supporting a claim.
Alongside the workshops, the review will contact Disabled People's Organisations, charities and MPs to test and refine its emerging recommendations over the same period. The next phase will therefore combine direct claimant evidence with organised sector input and parliamentary feedback before the report is submitted to government. For advisers, local authorities and constituency offices, that timetable shows the review has moved beyond broad evidence gathering. The stated purpose is to examine whether proposed changes would be fairer, clearer and workable in practice, placing assessment, communication and decision-making at the centre of this stage.
The application window is short. Registration closes at 5pm on Friday 21 August 2026, and selected participants are due to be informed by 4 September 2026. The government said selection will begin on a random basis, after which the steering group will check whether the final group reflects a balanced range of characteristics. Where a characteristic is under-represented, further applicants from that group will be chosen at random from the wider pool.
This stage of the review builds on a substantial body of evidence already collected. According to the government, more than 38,000 responses were submitted to the call for evidence, alongside earlier workshops and discussions with disabled people, representative organisations and specialists. The review is co-chaired by Sir Stephen Timms, Minister for Social Security and Disability, Sharon Brennan and Dr Clenton Farquharson CBE, and is supported by a 12-member steering group intended to bring together lived experience, subject expertise and a range of backgrounds.
In the government's account of the process, the workshops are intended to do more than collect testimony. Dr Clenton Farquharson said people with direct experience of applying for or receiving PIP are best placed to test where the benefit works, where it creates barriers and whether proposed changes would be fairer, clearer and more effective in real life. That is the central policy question for the closing stage of the Timms Review. If the autumn 2026 report is to shape the future of PIP with credibility, ministers will need to show that the final recommendations reflect not only formal consultation, but evidence from claimants, families, support workers and disability organisations.