Have I written too much on my PIP form?

Hi, I am following the advice writing my PIP form but it is now at nearly 30 pages of typed answers to the questions, just over 14,000 words. Will this be read by the assessors or will they think it is too long and not read it? I think it's so long as I have a couple of physical health conditions and numerous mental health conditions so there is a lot to explain and a lot of examples and I have gone into detail in the hope they will fully understand how all my health problems affect my life. But is it too long that it won't be looked at? That is worrying me now.

Hi RJ,

I'm no expert on this, far from it. All I can say is when I first wrote my renewal form out back in April, I was under the ipression that the more you put down the better.

My attempt to get a paper based review failed and I was called in for reassessment.

All I can say is, next time I will cause myself far less stress and unecessary work by being much more minimalistic.

Putting myself in the shoes of tbe Decision Maker who reads these, the more you have to read the more complicated it becomes - so more chance of having to be interviewed, so I really feel that, now after doing this, that I would use words sparingly, to the point and make every one of them count.

That's my plan for next time, anyway.

It's more than likely I will still be called in for assessment, but I feel the form will have more than likely have been read and the assessor or Decision Maker will have a better insight into my problems.

Its not just a case of 'less is more' but 'more is more complicated'.

It's just how I feel now after a really messy and stressful time before things got sorted. I wish I'd have known what I know now back in April.

Anyway, good luck!

Hello RJ

I had a similar dilemma recently with my son's first PIP claim which was 7000 words. I felt I had edited as much as possible and aimed to be thorough yet concise but I had the same worries as you. Editing was difficult as my son has some quite complex needs so I tried to focus on the descriptors. I also tried not to include anecdotes, just provide examples only where relevant.

However, one mistake I think I did make was with the layout trying to reduce page count. In preparation for my tribunal I've increased font size, used bullet points, subheadings and made it generally more reader friendly.

I think it's difficult to say whether assessors will read reports based on length, but there are obviously people who do submit lengthy reports who are awarded, so presumably they are read. At the same time being concise and making it easy to follow no doubt helps

Hope you get a good result and well done for all the hard work.

Gordon wrote: RJ

There's no right or wrong amount of content to provide with your form but if you are typing it as you think of it then there is a good chance that you are using a lot more words than you need to, I know that I certainly do.

So, first of all, I would go back through what you have written and look to try and reduce how much you have written.

Secondly, consider how you are laying out the information; think of including an index at the front, put a summary at the start of each section, make sure that you have broken your text into reasonably sized paragraphs, possibly number them.

Gordon

Thank you for the advice Gordon, I will go back through and see if I can cut it down somewhat and make more paragraph breaks as some are certainly too long. I'll try to make an index as well if I can.

phrank wrote: Hi RJ,

I'm no expert on this, far from it. All I can say is when I first wrote my renewal form out back in April, I was under the ipression that the more you put down the better.

My attempt to get a paper based review failed and I was called in for reassessment.

All I can say is, next time I will cause myself far less stress and unecessary work by being much more minimalistic.

Putting myself in the shoes of tbe Decision Maker who reads these, the more you have to read the more complicated it becomes - so more chance of having to be interviewed, so I really feel that, now after doing this, that I would use words sparingly, to the point and make every one of them count.

That's my plan for next time, anyway.

It's more than likely I will still be called in for assessment, but I feel the form will have more than likely have been read and the assessor or Decision Maker will have a better insight into my problems.

Its not just a case of 'less is more' but 'more is more complicated'.

It's just how I feel now after a really messy and stressful time before things got sorted. I wish I'd have known what I know now back in April.

Anyway, good luck!

Thank you phrank, yes that's a really good point about it becoming too complicated for the decision maker. I think I am going to use paragraph headings if I can make them work. I've had a go with the first three questions and it was quick and easy but I need to read through the rest and try and cut it down more and make the paragraphs shorter then I think the paragraph headings will be easier to write and simple for the decision maker to understand.