the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues
The Conservative party has continued to use misleading figures about “fitness for work” assessments, despite an independent watchdog finding they were potentially misleading. The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) has been forced to contact the party to draw its attention to […]
More than half a million disabled people are set to lose out financially through controversial reforms to the disability benefit assessment system, government figures suggest. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has released figures that suggest that 516,000 claimants across […]
Job coaches with no academic qualifications could be making life-changing – and potentially life-ending – decisions on whether a disabled person must carry out work-related activity, if the government goes ahead with its plans to scrap the “fitness for work” test. […]
New figures released by the government show how nearly all “fitness for work” assessments are now being carried out on the telephone, or simply by examining paperwork. The figures show that three-quarters (73 per cent) of completed work capability assessments (WCAs) […]
Disabled activists reacted with horror this week after learning that the discredited government contractor Atos could soon be carrying out “fitness for work” tests again, six years after withdrawing from its assessment contract. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is […]
A coroner has refused to explain why the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) failed to give evidence at an inquest which heard how an autistic man took his own life after being told to attend a work capability assessment (WCA). […]
A disabled man took his own life six days after being told to attend a “fitness for work” assessment, despite the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) being repeatedly warned its actions had made him suicidal, an inquest has heard. The […]
The minister for disabled people has added fresh confusion to the government’s planned social security reforms after apparently misleading a second parliamentary meeting about proposals to merge assessments for disability benefits. Last year, the government confirmed it was pushing ahead with […]
A coroner who heard the inquest into a man who starved to death after his benefits were wrongly removed has been urged to act on information showing the government failed to pass her evidence linking its actions with other deaths. The […]
A disabled man who starved to death after his benefits were wrongly stopped is the latest in a long line of fatalities that can be linked to failings and deliberate policy decisions by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). This […]