DWP ‘destroyed evidence’ on secret investigations rules, in latest ‘cover-up’

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is again facing cover-up allegations after suggesting that it has destroyed reports showing why it weakened guidance on when to investigate suicides of benefit claimants.

Disability News Service revealed last month that DWP had weakened the rules on when to carry out an internal process review (IPR) in April 2021.

The previous year it had told the National Audit Office it would always carry out one of its secret reviews when it heard of a claimant’s death if they had died by suicide, even if there were no allegations that DWP’s actions had contributed to that death.

But since April 2021, after weakening the rules, DWP now only carries out an IPR following the suicide of a claimant if there is already an allegation that DWP’s actions “may have negatively contributed to the customer’s circumstances”.

After asking DWP for any reports about this decision that were considered by DWP directors in the year up to the change in the rules, DWP said it has established that “the information you requested is not held by this Department”.

In the response to the freedom of information request, DWP suggested it had destroyed any such reports – even though the decision was taken less than three years ago – because the discussions were “operational in nature as opposed to policy based”.

The department said: “As discussions around Internal Process Reviews, their management and the criteria that relate to them, are operational in nature as opposed to policy based, there is no requirement for the Department to retain any such reports.”

Figures obtained through a freedom of information request have shown that on at least four occasions in 2022-23 – as a result of the new rules – the department failed to carry out an IPR when told of the suicide of a claimant.

For more than a decade, DNS has been revealing how DWP has covered-up evidence of links between its actions and the deaths of claimants, and how it has repeatedly tried to delay evidence of those links being released.

A DWP spokesperson declined to comment on its freedom of information response.

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