DWP hides secret ‘briefing pack’ which describes views of civil servants on call for benefit deaths inquiry

Labour ministers have refused to release a “briefing pack” which would reveal the thoughts of civil servants on repeated calls for an inquiry into hundreds, and probably thousands, of benefit-related deaths.

Disabled activists, families of deceased claimants and MPs have been calling for years for an independent inquiry into years of deaths caused by the actions, policies and failings of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

But DWP has rarely explained its position on the calls for an inquiry or offered a defence of its actions.

The existence of the briefing pack only emerged when Disability News Service (DNS) asked to see emails from the DWP communications team that mentioned DNS editor John Pring in the months after Labour’s general election victory in July 2024, and the publication of his book about the years of DWP deaths the following month*.

It took eight months for DWP to produce the heavily-redacted emails in response to his right of access request, and they were only released thanks to pro bono assistance from solicitors Mishcon de Reya and their senior data protection specialist, Jon Baines.

Attached to one email, sent on 24 December 2024, was a detailed “briefing pack” on the calls for a public inquiry.

Three months ago, DNS asked to see that briefing pack.

In response, DWP twice asked for more time to consider the request.

Now the department has finally rejected the request, claiming it is entitled to use an exemption under the Freedom of Information Act which says that information can be withheld if releasing it would inhibit the “free and frank provision of advice”.

DWP said there was a “strong public interest” in maintaining the exemption to allow “open and candid internal discussion, enabling officials to fully explore issues and develop considered advice in a confidential setting”.

It admitted there was “strong public interest in disclosing information which ensures transparency in the way in which government operates and in increased transparency and accountability of Ministers and public officials”.

But it concluded that, if the briefing pack was released, there was “a risk that similar advice would either be less candid or not produced at all due to concerns about potential release”, which could impact DWP’s “ability to function effectively”.

DNS has previously shown how the department spent more than a decade covering up evidence that linked its actions with hundreds, and probably thousands, of deaths of disabled social security claimants.

Documents secured through freedom of information requests, inquest reports, and investigations by DNS and bereaved family members show how DWP destroyed incriminating records, failed to share crucial evidence with its own independent reviewers and grieving relatives, and even lied to a coroner.

Among the evidence linking DWP with multiple deaths is research by public health experts from the universities of Liverpool and Oxford, who showed in 2015 that, across England, the reassessment through the work capability assessment of disabled people receiving the old incapacity benefit was associated with an extra 590 suicides between 2010 and 2013.

DWP rarely comments on the calls for an inquiry, but one time it did so was when it was forced in 2019 to respond to a parliamentary petition calling for an inquiry after the death of Jodey Whiting.

It said then: “We currently have no plans to hold an independent inquiry into deaths relating to actions taken by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).”

It claimed that safeguarding claimants was “a priority” and that it was “committed to safeguarding vulnerable claimants and, in the tragic case where someone dies, ensuring that we respond swiftly and sensitively”.

*The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence, Pring’s book on the years of deaths linked to DWP’s actions and failings, is published by Pluto Press