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The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is secretly testing sweeping new rules – described as a “recipe for disaster” – on disability benefit assessments, which will reduce the influence of healthcare professionals and hand greater responsibility to civil servants. The […]
The government has refused to explain the impact that last week’s budget will have on disabled people who receive benefits, despite repeated requests for clarity over cuts of up to £580 million a year. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) […]
Disabled activists have questioned the “draconian” conclusions of a Lords committee that has told the government to impose stricter conditions, more assessments, and a more “rigorous” work capability assessment on claimants of out-of-work disability benefits. The calls by the economic affairs […]
The equality watchdog has finally launched a – limited – investigation into unlawful treatment by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) of disabled benefit claimants, including some who died, five years after it was first told to act. The move […]
A controversial outsourcing company is facing questions over its data security procedures after it admitted sending a recording of a disabled woman being assessed for a disability benefit to another claimant. Capita, which has faced repeated criticism over the last decade […]
Key details reveal how four private sector providers have been told to carry out health and disability benefit assessments over the next five years, after being awarded £2.8 billion-worth of contracts by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The contracts […]
A disabled campaigner who tried to take his own life in his local jobcentre has described how “anger and despair” at the imminent reassessment of both of his disability benefits drove him to the suicide attempt. David Rollins, from Orchardson Avenue, […]
Disabled activists have raised concerns about the human rights record of the outsourcing company that defeated Atos in the battle for a multi-million-pound disability benefits assessment contract. Disability News Service (DNS) reported last week that the government decision to award Serco […]
A Conservative MP has told his own government that disabled people’s trust in the disability benefits assessment process is “severely lacking”. Elliot Colburn was introducing a debate on three parliamentary petitions that between them have been backed by tens of thousands […]
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) tried to prevent its most controversial private sector contractor winning a five-year £338 million contract to provide disability benefit assessments, court documents suggest. Most of the successful bidders for five regional contracts to provide […]