The Short Answer
The reliability criteria are four tests every activity must pass before it counts as done. Regulation 4 of the PIP Regulations requires an activity to be completed safely, to an acceptable standard, repeatedly, and within a reasonable time period. Failing any one of the four means the descriptor does not apply, and the next descriptor up applies instead. The tests are where most successful challenges are won.
The Four Tests
All four must be satisfied, and one failure is enough. Regulation 4 of the PIP Regulations 2013 sets them out, and they apply to every descriptor in both components. Each test asks a different question about the same task.
| Test | The question | Example of failing it |
|---|---|---|
| Safely | Is harm to you or anyone else unlikely? | Bathing alone with a real fall risk |
| To an acceptable standard | Is the task actually completed? | Clothes put on but not fastened |
| Repeatedly | Can it be done as often as reasonably needed? | One shower leaving you unable to move for hours |
| In a reasonable time period | Within about twice the usual time? | Dressing taking 45 minutes |
Last checked: 7 August 2026
The tests apply to every descriptor in all 12 PIP descriptors, in both components, at every points level. They are not a special allowance for severe cases.
Safely
Unlikely to cause harm, to you or to another person. The question is about risk rather than about whether harm has already happened. A person who has not yet fallen in the shower but is at real risk of doing so is not washing safely.
Risk arising from a cognitive or sensory cause is treated differently from risk arising from a physical one. The DWP assessment guide directs that where a fall arises from a physical inability to move safely it belongs to the moving around activity, but where it arises from a sensory or cognitive impairment — the guide gives seizures with loss of consciousness as the example — it belongs to planning and following journeys instead.
To an Acceptable Standard
The task as the descriptor describes it, not an approximation of it. The DWP assessment guide sets the standards activity by activity: washing means cleaning the whole body, including removing dirt and sweat, and preparing food means a simple meal for one from fresh ingredients, including opening packaging, peeling, chopping and serving.
Substitution is where this test bites. Someone who eats only microwave meals because chopping is impossible has not prepared and cooked a simple meal to the standard the activity describes, and a separate 2-point descriptor exists for exactly that situation.
Repeatedly
As often as the activity is reasonably required. The assessment guide frames it as "whether the claimant can repeat the activity within a reasonable period of time and to the same standard", and adds that this "clearly includes consideration of symptoms such as pain, discomfort, breathlessness, fatigue and anxiety".
It also directs that "the impact of completing one activity on the ability to complete others must also be considered". A shower that makes cooking impossible for the rest of the day affects two activities, not one.
In a Reasonable Time Period
Commonly understood as no more than twice the time a person without the condition would take. Regulation 4 requires the activity to be completed "within a reasonable time period", and the comparison is with an unimpaired person doing the same task rather than with your own past.
This test is the easiest to evidence and the most often left unmentioned, because the times involved feel unremarkable to the person living them. Timing four or five routine tasks over a week produces a comparison an assessor can use.
How to Evidence the Criteria
Record aftermath and frequency, not just difficulty. All four elements come from regulation 4 of the PIP Regulations 2013 — safely, to an acceptable standard, repeatedly and within a reasonable time period — and a reasonable time period is no more than twice as long as it would take someone without the condition. All four tests turn on what happens after an activity as much as during it, and a dated diary is the only format that records both. The tests are about consequences, and consequences are what a diary captures.
A usable entry names the activity, the date, whether it was completed, how long it took, and what followed. Four to six weeks of entries shows a pattern that a single description cannot, and it answers the repeatability test directly.
Statements from people who help you work the same way. What they do, how often, and what happens when they do not, addresses all four tests at once.
Where the Criteria Change the Score
They move a descriptor up, not a component across. Applying reliability to washing might move a claim from descriptor 4a at 0 points to descriptor 4b at 2 points, or from 4b to 4e at 3 points.
Those single steps are what thresholds are built from. Four such moves is 8 points and the standard rate. How the points are then added and converted into a rate is set out on the assessment scoring page.