• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / Benefits and Poverty / DWP’s latest confession on safety: ‘We keep no record of complaints linked to deaths’
Entrance to DWP's Caxton House HQ

DWP’s latest confession on safety: ‘We keep no record of complaints linked to deaths’

By John Pring on 21st March 2019 Category: Benefits and Poverty

Listen

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is facing fresh allegations of negligence – potentially criminal – after admitting that it keeps no records of how many of the complaints it receives involve the death of a claimant of disability benefits.

The admission came in response to a freedom of information request from Disability News Service (DNS), which arrived just 24 hours before the launch of a new parliamentary petition* calling for an independent inquiry into deaths linked to DWP failings.

It adds to mounting evidence that DWP is institutionally disablist and not fit for purpose and will fuel calls for urgent changes to its policies and administration of benefits to ensure it makes the safety of all claimants a priority, as demanded by the petition.

DNS had asked in the freedom of information request how many of the complaints submitted to the Independent Case Examiner (ICE) about DWP involved a claimant of a disability-related benefit who had died before that complaint was submitted.

The request followed an ICE report into the death of Jodey Whiting, who had a long history of mental distress and took her own life 15 days after her disability benefits were stopped for missing a work capability assessment when she was seriously ill.

The ICE report concluded that DWP had failed five times to follow its own safeguarding rules in the weeks leading up to her death, and that it had been guilty of “multiple” and “significant” failings in handling her case.

ICE reviews complaints about government departments that deal with benefits, work and financial support, but can only investigate concerns after that department has delivered its own “final response” to a complaint.

Responding to the freedom of information request, DWP said that ICE did not record “the category of information you have requested” because the department itself “uses high level corporate complaint categories to record customer complaints” and these do not include whether a claimant has died.

The only categories DWP offers are: “DWP staff don’t treat me with respect”; “you take too long”; “you’ve got it wrong”; “you haven’t given me the information that suits my needs”; “I can’t access the system”; and “DWP policy is unfair”.

Previous freedom of information admissions by DWP have shown that it has carried out scores of secret peer reviews (later renamed internal process reviews) into the deaths of benefit claimants.

And government-funded research concluded three years ago that DWP’s programme to reassess people on incapacity benefit through the work capability assessment was linked to 590 suicides in just three years.

DWP had failed to comment by noon today (Thursday).

DNS had asked whether DWP agreed that it was seriously negligent to fail to analyse how many complaints it was receiving in which a claimant had died, particularly those linked to the non-payment or withdrawal of vital benefits.

DNS had also asked how DWP would be able to respond to serious flaws in the system that were leading to loss of life if it did not know how many such complaints were being received about various aspects of its service.

And DNS asked whether Joanna Wallace, the independent case examiner, had any concerns about the failure to record this category of information.

*If you sign the petition, please note that you will need to confirm your signature by clicking on an email you will be sent automatically by the House of Commons petitions committee

Samaritans can be contacted free, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, by calling 116 123 or emailing [email protected]

A note from the editor:

Please consider making a voluntary financial contribution to support the work of DNS and allow it to continue producing independent, carefully-researched news stories that focus on the lives and rights of disabled people and their user-led organisations.

Please do not contribute if you cannot afford to do so, and please note that DNS is not a charity. It is run and owned by disabled journalist John Pring and has been from its launch in April 2009.

Thank you for anything you can do to support the work of DNS…

Share this post:

Share on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on Reddit

Tags: benefit deaths DWP Freedom of Information ICE Jodey Whiting Justice for Jodey Whiting safeguarding

Related

Evidence mounts of disability benefits white paper’s fatal flaws
23rd March 2023
Court orders second Jodey Whiting inquest to probe consequences of DWP’s actions
23rd March 2023
‘Nonsensical’ disability benefits white paper sparks return of Spartacus
23rd March 2023

Primary Sidebar

Subscribe to the free Access London Theatre Guide

Access

Latest Stories

Disability discrimination in Met police is ‘baked into the system’, says report

Evidence mounts of disability benefits white paper’s fatal flaws

Court orders second Jodey Whiting inquest to probe consequences of DWP’s actions

‘Nonsensical’ disability benefits white paper sparks return of Spartacus

Concern over expansion of supported internship scheme ‘with potential for exploitation’

Labour ‘shares concerns’ about government’s work capability assessment plans

‘Heartless’ reforms to disability benefits ‘defy logic’

DWP white paper offers mix of ‘human catastrophe’ and overdue reforms

DWP figures show 600,000 could be missing out on disability benefits

DLA ‘disallowances’ plummeted after death of Philippa Day, DWP figures show

Advice and Information

Readspeaker

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2023 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web