To ask Her Majesty's Government whether examining medical practitioners' examinations in the homes of disabled persons will, as part of the personal independence payment (PIP) system, be replaced with assessments at Atos assessment centres such as those currently carried out for employment and support allowance assessments; and what consultation they have had with those eligible for PIP and the organisations that represent them regarding changes to such assessments.

For most individuals a key part of the assessment for personal independence payment will be a face-to-face assessment with a health professional. This will allow an in-depth look at their circumstances and give individuals the opportunity to put across their own views of the impact of their impairment on their everyday lives. However, we recognise that they may not be appropriate for everyone. For example, we will not be expecting people who are claiming under the terminal illness provisions to attend consultations or where we have already gathered sufficient evidence from other sources on which to carry out the assessment.

In developing our proposals for delivering personal independence payment we are seeking to learn from the experience of delivering the work capability assessment, including looking at the findings of the Harrington reviews, and from customer insight work. This will help to ensure that the process is fair, empathetic and supportive to individuals. We are also working closely with organisations representing disabled people and have set up a dedicated group to help us design delivery arrangements for the benefit. We intend to discuss issues around the operation of the assessment with this group in the near future.

No decisions have yet been taken on where face-to-face consultations will be carried out-for example, in claimants' homes, assessment centres or other locations. This will depend in part on the outcome of the tendering process, which will determine who will deliver the assessments. The department is in the process of tendering for a framework of providers to deliver future health and disability assessments. A competition amongst framework providers for the PIP assessment will then commence. We envisage this being completed by summer 2012.

As part of the tendering process we will ask potential providers to set out their proposals for delivering face-to-face consultations, including where these will be carried out. We will make clear to them that their proposals will need to reflect the needs of disabled people and that they must put in place arrangements to visit claimants in their own homes where they are unable to travel to other locations.