DWP director general made ‘joke’ mocking disability equality as he waited to give evidence to MPs

A senior figure in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) loudly “joked” about disability equality and reasonable adjustments as he waited to give evidence to a committee of MPs, Disability News Service can reveal.

The incident has raised fresh concerns about a long-term toxic culture entrenched within DWP, which successive Conservative and Labour governments have been unwilling or unable to address over the last four decades.

Neil Couling (pictured), who has been at the heart of successive waves of welfare reform over the last 30 years, made the comment to a group of DWP colleagues who were “laughing and joking” outside a House of Commons committee room on 12 March.

Couling told them, as they were waiting in a corridor in Portcullis House to give evidence to the public accounts committee on the Access to Work scheme: “If it gets difficult in there, I will just demand a reasonable adjustment.”

Couling was surrounded by colleagues including permanent secretary Sir Peter Schofield; Helga Swidenbank, DWP’s director of accessibility and disputes; and Bill Thorpe, the department’s director of disability and health support.

All of them – including younger colleagues – laughed at his “joke” and none of them intervened to suggest that he apologise, Disability News Service (DNS) has been told.

Couling is director general of DWP services and fraud and previously spent more than a decade with overall responsibility for introducing the much-criticised universal credit programme.

Anne*, one of the shocked onlookers who heard the joke, said she had no idea who Couling was at the time, but was later astonished when she realised he was giving evidence to the committee and was one of DWP’s most senior figures.

She said that reasonable adjustments were a crucial part of the equality law framework that protects disabled people, and one of the few tools they have to ensure fair treatment, including in the workplace.

Anne said Couling had been “holding court” in the corridor and “just brazenly stated it almost as if he was on a stage and they were in the audience, and they all thought it was hilarious”.

Sir Peter – who is retiring next month and gave evidence alongside Couling – is the department’s top civil servant, although he is about to retire.

Anne has told DNS she is 100 per cent convinced that Couling made the joke and that she remembered the incident accurately.

She told a colleague what she had heard immediately after the evidence session ended.

Anne said: “When I saw the core part of that team move to sit down to give evidence, I was completely stunned.”

She said Couling had been “brazen but also a bit stupid”.

She said: “Reasonable adjustments are a legal right. To make light of them and for somebody so senior to make light of them… They were all laughing and nobody challenged it.

“If they can speak so openly about that, then what is it like as a culture within the department, and not just Access to Work?

“It was just so shocking. If that’s how he speaks to the team and that’s his view about reasonable adjustments for disabled people, that says a lot.

“It was such a shock, but also, it explains a lot about DWP and Access to Work.”

In response to questions from DNS this week, a DWP spokesperson claimed: “We don’t recall this conversation.”

But the spokesperson refused to say which senior figures had been asked about the incident and who “we” referred to.

It also provided a factually inaccurate statement, referring repeatedly to safeguarding issues and the Commons work and pensions committee, rather than the public accounts committee, and failing to mention Access to Work.

The DWP spokesperson said in the statement: “We don’t recall this conversation.

“The tone described would not be consistent with DWP values.

“Our customers are at the heart of everything we do.

“That’s why we’re taking action to improve their experience and our safeguarding processes, as recognised by the select committee.

“This includes introducing a safeguarding strategy team, and [we] have already made good progress by ensuring health assessors complete a higher level of safeguarding training.

“We know we’ve got further to go, but we’ve made progress.”

*Not her real name