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A secret report written by a Conservative peer called for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to reduce the number of suicides of benefit claimants and other “very bad cases” linked to the department’s actions. The Complaints, Suicides and Other […]
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has unlawfully failed to respond to a request to see a secret paper on the department’s safeguarding failures, casting doubt on a minister’s pledge to open DWP to “public scrutiny”. The “critical friend” paper […]
Ministers have sat on research for three years that linked the sharp increase in claims for disability benefits with a deterioration in disabled people’s health, an increase in the financial hardship they were facing, and their need for independence. Successive governments […]
Conservative ministers prevented research that showed disabled people on out-of-work benefits were subject to high levels of stress, debt and isolation from being included in a controversial policy paper that called for cuts to spending on those benefits. The research had […]
The Conservative party has refused to explain why its former ministers “sat on” vital research papers for up to six years while running the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Labour’s new work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, this week published […]
Campaigners have welcomed election defeats for a series of former Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) ministers, while also expressing disappointment that three of the most unpopular figures from the last 14 years managed to survive the Labour landslide. There was […]
The Conservative party appears to be considering highly-controversial plans to means-test disability benefits as a way of cutting spending. Disability News Service (DNS) has been told that participants in focus groups have been asked questions about which people “deserve” various benefits […]
A long-running legal case that reached the Court of Appeal this week will force the government to take its duty to consult with disabled people more seriously, according to one of the three disabled campaigners who have brought the case. The […]
A disabled Conservative peer has told MPs that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is “stuck in a time warp” and has a “culture of low aspiration”. Lord [Kevin] Shinkwin (pictured) said he believed DWP treated disabled people “as maybe […]
The government abandoned proposals for an independent review of its much-criticised sanctions policy, the latest example of how a minister watered down plans to prevent suicides and learn lessons from the deaths of benefit claimants. The decision to further limit the […]