• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / Crime / DWP faces cover-up claims over Work Choice ‘fraud’ investigation

DWP faces cover-up claims over Work Choice ‘fraud’ investigation

By John Pring on 2nd May 2014 Category: Crime, Employment, News Archive

Listen

newslatestThe Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is facing accusations of a cover-up, after clearing one of its specialist welfare-to-work providers of fraud allegations, despite refusing to interview either of the two whistleblowers.

Perveen Sud and Reena Gour came forward last year to describe how the Work Choice provider Seetec had been artificially inflating the number of jobs it said it was finding for disabled people.

Sud and Gour described to Disability News Service (DNS) how Seetec offered Work Choice clients as free labour to charities and other host organisations, and then paid their wages for the next six months while allegedly pretending to DWP that the salaries were instead being paid by the host organisations.

Three organisations then told DNS how they had accepted disabled job-seekers for six-month placements, even though it was made clear to Seetec that they were just volunteer roles, they would not be paid, and there would be no jobs available at the end of the six months.

Despite this, Seetec – which provides Work Choice services in west and north London and has more than 800 employees – is alleged to have logged the placements as “job outcomes”, claiming payments from the government both at the beginning and end of the six months.

Seetec was able to make a profit because the amount it received from DWP – thousands of pounds for every client who completed six months in a job – was hundreds of pounds a month more than it paid the clients, who only had to work 20 hours a week at minimum wage to qualify for a job outcome.

Sud and Gour, both former employees of Seetec, passed on their concerns to DWP last August.

A DWP spokeswoman told DNS earlier this month that the investigation into their claims had found “no fraud” had taken place.

But she refused to say whether the investigation reached any other conclusions, or whether it had criticised Seetec.

Now DNS has confirmed that neither of the whistleblowers was interviewed by the DWP investigation team.

Sud said: “We have the evidence but we were never ever called. It is a bit concerning because [the fraud] was so blatant.”

She said DWP’s conclusion that there was no evidence of fraud was a “surprise” and “makes no logical sense”.

And she said she was “upset and angry” with the way DWP dealt with the “investigation”, and added: “If they have done a thorough investigation, how is that possible without even talking to the whistleblowers?”

Gour said she also had not been interviewed by DWP, or asked for her evidence.

She said: “DWP didn’t want to speak to us. When someone makes an allegation, the first thing should be to come back and ask questions, but they haven’t done anything at all, not even a phone call.

“Companies like Seetec can get away with things like this. It’s not nice, it’s unethical.”

After speaking to the two whistleblowers, DNS passed their concerns to DWP, which has so far refused to comment on why it failed to interview them.

Labour’s shadow employment minister, Stephen Timms, who tabled a parliamentary question about the fraud allegations last November, after having the claims passed to him by DNS, said this week: “I am deeply worried that the DWP does not even appear to have investigated these allegations properly.

“Complacency in this area is disastrous. Government departments must be vigilant on fraud, DWP above all.”

Seetec declined to comment.

1 May 2014

Share this post:

Share on X (Twitter)Share on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on RedditShare on LinkedIn
A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities. Get 10% off with BDA10'

Related

Ministers are considering further extension to disability hate crime laws, after pledge on ‘aggravated’ offences
26th June 2025
Access to Work cuts risk ‘decimating’ disability arts movement, disabled artists and consultants warn
29th May 2025
‘Access to Work showed me a working life was still possible… now Keir Starmer has put that at risk’
29th May 2025

Primary Sidebar

On the left of the image are multiple heads of different colours - white, aqua, red, light brown, and dark green - all grouped together, then the words ‘Campaign for Disability Justice. Sign up to support. #OpportunitySecurityRespect’
A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities. Get 10% off with BDA10'

Access

Latest Stories

Disabled MP who quit government over benefit cuts tells DNS: ‘The consequences will be devastating’

Disabled peers plan to ‘amend, amend, amend, amend, amend’ after assisted dying bill reaches Lords

Minister finally admits that working-age benefits spending is stable, despite months of ‘spiralling’ claims

This bill opens the door to scandal, abuse and injustice, disabled activists say after assisted dying bill vote

Timms says cuts must go ahead, despite being reminded of risk that disabled claimants could die

Absence of disabled people’s voices from assisted dying bill has been ‘astonishing’, says disabled MP

Timms misleads MPs on DWP transparency and cover-ups, as he gives evidence on PIP review

Ministers are considering further extension to disability hate crime laws, after pledge on ‘aggravated’ offences

Making all self-driving pilot schemes accessible would be ‘counter-productive’ and slow us down, says minister

Involve disabled people ‘meaningfully’ from the start when developing digital assistive tech, says report

Advice and Information

Readspeaker
A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities. Get 10% off with BDA10'

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Bluesky
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Threads
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2025 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web