DWP claims missing stats on secret deaths investigations in annual report was just an error

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has claimed that the omission from its annual report of potentially damaging statistics about deaths linked to universal credit was just an error.

The figures would have shown how many deaths linked to universal credit the department investigated in 2023-24 through its system of secret internal process reviews (IPRs).

Disability News Service (DNS) reported only last week that DWP had been ordered by the information commissioner to release figures showing how many IPRs – internal investigations into deaths and other serious cases linked to DWP’s actions – were carried out into the deaths of universal credit claimants over the last four years.

The information commissioner’s ruling is set to highlight the commitment to transparency of the new disability minister, Sir Stephen Timms.

He repeatedly clashed with work and pensions ministers over their failure to release critical information to the public when he was the chair of the Commons work and pensions committee.

Now he is a DWP minister himself, and responsible for IPRs and universal credit.

DWP looked set to reveal in its annual report and accounts how many cases involving universal credit claimants were accepted for an IPR during 2023-24.

The report, which was published on Monday, introduced the figures on page 80, stating: “The chart below shows the primary service lines relating to the customers’ cases accepted to IPR across 2023-24.”

But there is no chart in the report that provides that information.

This suggests that the department removed the information – perhaps following the information commissioner’s decision – and then forgot to delete the reference to the figures.

Despite the annual report and accounts detailing the performance of the department under the leadership of the previous Conservative government, the new Labour-led DWP refused this week to produce a statement on the missing figures.

But it claimed the failure to include the figures linking universal credit and other benefits with claimant deaths was just an error, and that it was hoping to add the missing data as soon as possible.

The report reveals that 53 cases were accepted for an IPR in 2023-24 – with 40 of these relating to the death of a claimant – but it does not say how many of these related to universal credit claimants.

The 400-plus page report provides further evidence of the difficulty of the task facing Timms and his fellow Labour work and pensions ministers.

The number of complaints received by DWP that related to disability services rose by 30 per cent (from 650 to 845) between the first three months of 2023 and the same period in 2024.

Meanwhile, the number of complaints about DWP received by the Independent Complaints Examiner (ICE) – the next level of the complaints process – rose by 19 per cent between 2022-23 and 2023-24 (from 4,732 to 5,634), and the number of complaints partially or fully upheld by ICE rose by 30 per cent over the same period (from 578 to 754).

The report also shows how the department is struggling to cut the delays new claimants face when applying for some benefits.

Only 3.5 per cent of claims for disability living allowance (for children) were processed within “planned timescales”, while the percentage for personal independence payment (PIP) was just 51.7 per cent within the expected 75 working days (although this was higher than the 38.4 per cent in 2022-23).

For employment and support allowance, it fell from 47.4 per cent in 2022-23 to 39.5 per cent in 2023-24.

The report claims that “continued high demand has meant that the Department’s ability to process claims consistently in a timely manner across all its services has come under considerable pressure”.

Meanwhile, a report from the National Audit Office (NAO) has added to concerns about DWP’s performance, as Labour takes control of the department after its general election victory.

The report by the public spending watchdog on DWP customer service concludes: “Faced with growing demand and a challenging operational context, DWP’s customer service has fallen short of the expected standards over recent years, particularly for certain benefits, such as PIP.

“It is generally not meeting its performance benchmarks or standards for customer satisfaction, payment timeliness and answering calls to its in-house telephone lines.”

It found that the average time DWP took to answer calls to its in‑house phone lines in 2023-24 was 15 minutes and 23 seconds.

In 2023-24, NAO estimated that DWP customers spent the equivalent of 753 years waiting for their calls to be answered, with 652 years waiting on DWP’s in-house lines and 102 years on outsourced phone lines.

Despite repeated concerns being raised in recent months about safeguarding and the safety of universal credit, none of the main political parties mentioned the issue in their election manifestos.

Earlier this month, DNS described how repeated failures by DWP led to the death of a disabled woman, Nazerine Anderson, after her case was randomly selected for a “performance measurement review” of her universal credit claim.

Last November, another coroner wrote to the department after the death of Kevin Gale, to warn DWP that it needed to act to prevent flaws in the universal credit system leading to further deaths, after Gale took his own life after becoming overwhelmed by the universal credit application process.

And in November 2022, DNS reported how a disabled woman left traumatised by the daily demands of universal credit took her own life just four days after being told she would need to attend a face-to-face meeting with a work coach. Her inquest has yet to take place.

In May, DNS reported how two-thirds of DWP staff still do not have enough time to deal with safeguarding concerns “carefully” and “correctly”, despite years of deaths of benefit claimants linked to DWP’s failings.

And last December, a dossier of evidence submitted by the PCS union to DWP showed the department to be a failing organisation in a “state of crisis” and facing a “near collapse” of its benefits systems, with staff accusing DWP of “deliberate neglect” and revealing that claimants in vulnerable situations were “falling through the gaps” in the system.

The rollout of universal credit to the remaining hundreds of thousands of disabled people still receiving income-related employment and support allowance will begin in September.

*The Department, DNS editor John Pring’s book on DWP and how its actions led to countless deaths of disabled people in the post-2010 era, will be published by Pluto Press on 20 August. Visit TheDepartmentBook.com before publication for a 50 per cent discount 

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