Four weeks into a Labour government and DWP blocks release of more info on deaths from secret reports

The Labour-run Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has blocked the release of information that would show how often the “fitness for work” test has been linked to suicides and other deaths and harm over the last five years.

It is the second time in consecutive weeks that DWP has refused to release information about the operation of the work capability assessment (WCA) under the previous Conservative government.

Disability News Service (DNS) requested the information to check how many secret internal process reviews (IPRs) into deaths and harm caused to claimants have mentioned the assessment, nearly 16 years after it was first introduced, and how many reviews made recommendations for improvements to the WCA.

Since its launch in 2008, countless deaths have been linked to the WCA, while DWP has a record of repeatedly denying the damage caused by the assessment and hiding the evidence of that harm.

The new Labour government has so far refused to say whether it will continue with the policy of the last Conservative government to tighten the WCA, and eventually scrap it.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves suggested this week that she would push for cuts to spending on social security.

Only last week, comments by work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall, and her support for a controversial report, suggested she wanted to increase pressure on disabled people to move off benefits and into work, while disregarding risks to their health and safety.

Now DWP has rejected – for the second time – a request by DNS to reveal how many concerns about the WCA are being highlighted by its civil servants.

It previously argued that it could not release the information because it intended to publish the figures itself, although it told DNS that it accepted that the information “could provide some increase in the transparency of the work the Department is undertaking in learning from its serious cases, and that it could also improve the public understanding of how the role of continuous improvement is employed by the Department”.

But it claimed that releasing the information could also provide a “misrepresentation of the true situation” and “could engender public distrust in the DWP, because the information is totally disassociated from the circumstances around which it relates”.

DNS asked DWP to reconsider this refusal to release the figures, arguing that the department had never published such information previously and would likely not start doing so now.

It also argued that it was “wrong and unlawful” for the department to assume that DNS would publish a news story that would mislead readers about what the figures showed.

After DNS asked it to reconsider the refusal to release the figures, DWP came up with a new excuse.

It is now arguing that it would be too expensive to check how many IPRs mention the WCA in each of the last five years, and how many recommendations mention the assessment process in each of those years.

There would only be about 300 IPRs to check for mentions of the WCA, but DWP is apparently arguing that it would take more than 24 hours to carry out these quick checks*.

Last week, DNS reported that DWP was set to continue with an appeal against a decision by the information commissioner that it should release vital information about the last government’s plans to scrap the WCA.

The commissioner has also ordered DWP to release information that would show how many IPRs have been carried out into the deaths of universal credit claimants, and what recommendations they made for improvements.

That decision came just three days after the appointment of Labour’s new disability minister, Sir Stephen Timms.

It is not yet clear whether he will release that information, despite his track record of challenging DWP secrecy while chair of the Commons work and pensions committee.

DWP had not commented by noon today (Thursday), despite being asked for a response on Tuesday morning.

*Regulations state that a government department does not need to comply with a freedom of information request if the cost would exceed £600, which guidance says is the equivalent of 24 hours at £25 an hour

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…