DWP staff tell MPs after years of deaths: We don’t have time to deal with safeguarding ‘carefully’ and ‘correctly’

Two-thirds of Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) staff still do not have enough time to deal with safeguarding concerns “carefully” and “correctly”, despite years of deaths of benefit claimants linked with DWP’s failings.

Results from a survey* carried out by the Commons work and pensions committee reveal serious concerns about safeguarding shared by a majority of DWP staff who took part, including hundreds who work in jobcentres.

DWP has continued to insist that it takes safeguarding seriously and has repeatedly challenged concerns raised by Disability News Service and others over the last decade, despite hundreds, and probably thousands, of deaths linked to its actions.

John McArdle, co-founder of the disabled people’s grassroots group Black Triangle, described the survey results as “truly shocking” after the years of activism by disabled people aimed at pleading with the department to act on safeguarding.

Mims Davies, the minister for disabled people, insisted to the committee (PDF) in March that the “narrative around DWP’s treatment of vulnerable people has been incredibly unhelpful” and was “not roundly correct”.

But the survey results, published quietly by the committee last week (24 May) after the date for the general election was announced, appear to show that these comments were misleading.

They show that 67 per cent of DWP staff who had direct contact with claimants either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement: “I have enough time in my day to deal with safeguarding concerns carefully, correctly and in a timely manner.”

They also show that more than two-fifths (42 per cent) of staff with direct contact with claimants did not believe they received adequate safeguarding training.

And even more (44 per cent) said the safeguarding guidance for frontline staff was not clear, comprehensive and easy to access, while more than a third (36 per cent) did not feel confident about how to handle a safeguarding concern.

The survey was completed by more than 1,700 DWP staff, of whom nearly 1,400 have direct contact with claimants.

It was carried out as part of an inquiry launched by the committee last July into DWP safeguarding.

For the last 10 months, the committee has investigated whether DWP has a duty to safeguard “vulnerable people”, and if it does not, whether it should.

Only last month, DWP admitted missing multiple opportunities to record the “vulnerability” of a disabled woman whose death had been linked by a coroner to failings at the heart of its universal credit working-age benefits system.

The survey results were published on the parliamentary website after the committee’s chair, Labour’s Sir Stephen Timms, wrote to ministers to tell them the inquiry had been abandoned because the committee had not had time to finalise its findings after prime minister Rishi Sunak called a general election and parliament was dissolved (see separate story).

Less than half of those who took part in the committee’s survey (44 per cent) and had direct contact with claimants said safeguarding was seen as a priority within jobcentres, and less than half (48 per cent) said they knew which agencies they could refer claimants to if there was a safeguarding concern.

Just one in four (25 per cent) of those with direct contact with claimants believed there was enough support from management and DWP’s “advanced customer support senior leaders” to ensure effective safeguarding.

In March, Mims Davies had told the committee: “We provide training and guidance for all our customer-facing staff so that they are adaptable to all the different scenarios they may face.”

She also said then that the department had “layers of support for those with complex needs”.

And she claimed it was “a core theme for us as a department to get the core of what we do right but always make sure vulnerability, an individualised, tailored approach and time is given to the people with the needs, and that we create a trusted relationship to then signpost them on to those with the expertise and ability to help with the wider complex needs”.

The Conservative party refused to comment on the survey results this week and said it was “one for the DWP to respond to given that it’s about their internal workings”.

But DWP declined to provide a statement on the survey results, although the department said mental health training was provided to all staff with direct contact with claimants, and that it had co-operated with the committee’s inquiry and had set out the improvements it had brought in to support “vulnerable claimants and those with complex needs”.

John McArdle said the survey results showed that disabled people in vulnerable situations were “taking their life in their hands” when entering a jobcentre.

He said: “You’re literally taking your life in your hands going in there when you’re a vulnerable person, and nobody seems to care enough to do anything about it.

“How on earth can they sleep at night? We are just statistics to them.

“They have been playing fast and loose with disabled people’s lives.”

He said the figures showed the department was in meltdown, and confirmed the picture shown by the dossier of evidence submitted by the PCS union to the department last December.

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

McArdle also pointed to the failure of the Equality and Human Rights Commission to act on concerns about DWP and the safety of claimants for at least five years.

The commission finally launched an investigation into unlawful treatment of disabled benefit claimants last week, five years after it was first asked to act by Labour’s Debbie Abrahams (see separate story).

He said: “The EHRC should have been all over this like a cheap suit, but they have not lifted a finger.”

*The survey was distributed through the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) to DWP staff who were PCS members, so the majority of respondents are likely to have been PCS staff, although PCS members were able to share the survey link with other colleagues

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