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Government plans to cap the annual amount spent on social security – including key disability benefits – have been criticised by disabled campaigners. The Conservative chancellor, George Osborne, announced in this week’s budget that the spending cap would be set at […]
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) must act urgently to deal with the “dire situation” and “unacceptable” delays facing claimants of the government’s new disability benefit, according to a committee of MPs. The work and pensions select committee said in […]
The government must improve the way it contracts out services such as disability benefits assessments to the private sector, according to an influential committee of MPs. The public accounts committee said that an absence of competition for companies such as Atos […]
A seriously-ill man on a waiting-list for a liver transplant has told how he is struggling to survive because of the lengthy delays in assessments for the government’s new disability benefit. His case is one of two reported on this week […]
A mother has told how her family had their Motability vehicle taken away because of a six-month delay in processing her daughter’s claim for the government’s new disability benefit. The case is one of two reported on this week by Disability […]
The low turnout by MPs in last week’s debate on the WOW petition will damage efforts to persuade the public to engage with politics and politicians, according to the campaign’s organisers. Backbench MPs agreed to hold the debate – which focused […]
Activists hope an historic House of Commons debate will prove a significant step towards forcing the government to assess the overall impact of its welfare reforms on disabled people, and to scrap the hated “fitness for work” test. Backbench MPs agreed […]
MPs have backed demands for the government to assess the true damage caused by its welfare reforms to the lives of disabled people, after an historic debate in the House of Commons. The debate was secured by the Labour MP John […]
A peer is to ask the public spending watchdog why a long-awaited probe into the government’s new disability benefit ignored serious concerns over the award of a £184 million assessment contract. A National Audit Office (NAO) director told Lord [David] Alton […]
The government’s “fitness for work” contractor has failed to produce a single piece of evidence to back up its claim that it is withdrawing from the contract because of “death threats” against its staff. The claims were first reported by the […]