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A Labour government would replace the “discredited” fitness for work test with a new assessment but it would not scrap benefit sanctions, the party’s shadow work and pensions secretary has admitted. Debbie Abrahams told a delighted party conference in Liverpool this […]
A disabled benefit claimant is set to lodge a complaint with the information commissioner after the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) sent him highly confidential medical details belonging to another benefit claimant. The man was sent the report, written by […]
The sister of a man driven to suicide by the “fitness for work” system tried to take her own life after being “treated like a criminal” by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) over her benefit claims. Eleanor Donnachie believes […]
A benefits assessor working for the outsourcing company Capita repeatedly “lied” in her report, after carrying out a face-to-face assessment of a disabled nurse which was observed by her husband, a retired GP. The disabled woman and her husband have asked […]
Liberal Democrats have voted for a new social security policy that will scrap the “fitness for work” test and all benefit sanctions, despite many disabled party members calling for a more radical approach to welfare reform. The vote at the party’s […]
The equality watchdog’s new chair, who is set to lead an investigation into whether Tory welfare reforms breached disabled people’s human rights, worked for the government on key contracts at the heart of those reforms, Disability News Service can reveal. David […]
“Very disturbing” new government figures show a steep fall in the proportion of disabled people being found eligible for out-of-work disability benefits. Disabled campaigners fear the figures show the government is cutting spending on disability benefits “below the radar”, after being […]
A string of activists, academics, politicians and journalists have welcomed the publication of a new book by a disabled researcher which exposes how successive governments have planned the “demolition of the welfare state”. Mo Stewart has spent eight years researching the […]
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has refused to consider an inquiry into its repeated failure to prevent the deaths of benefit claimants, despite the release of damning new information from nine secret reviews. Key information from reviews into the […]
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is refusing to publish nine secret reviews into the deaths of benefit claimants, despite finally admitting that seven of them relate to people who took their own lives. DWP only released the information after […]