Tory peer wrote secret report calling for DWP to reduce suicides and other ‘very bad cases’

A secret report written by a Conservative peer called for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to reduce the number of suicides of benefit claimants and other “very bad cases” linked to the department’s actions.

The Complaints, Suicides and Other Matters report was commissioned in February 2020 by Tory work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey, who made it clear at the time that its findings would never be published.

It is believed to be the first time any DWP report has produced such a clear conclusion that too many claimants were dying due to the department’s actions and failings, although it also concluded that the “cases of suicide are very small in number given the scale of DWP”.

It reached this conclusion despite DWP figures showing the department began 43 internal process reviews into suicides and other deaths linked to DWP between July 2019 and June 2020.

Although these will not all have been suicides, it is widely accepted outside DWP that the department only carries out IPRs into a small proportion of the suicides in which its actions and failings have played a part.

The report was written by Conservative peer Baroness [Lucy] Neville-Rolfe, a former civil servant, a member of the Prime Minister’s Policy Unit under John Major, and a former non-executive director of Tesco.

But at the time of writing the report, she was also a director of DWP contractor Capita, which has been linked with the deaths of disabled claimants including Philippa Day, and numerous other safeguarding concerns (see separate story).

Disability News Service (DNS) has only been able to obtain the report following pressure from the Information Commissioner’s Office, after DWP’s freedom of information team initially refused to even acknowledge a request to see the document.

The report – which is just nine pages long – concluded that “with robust, simple systems and well-trained staff many, perhaps most, possible difficulties can be avoided” when it comes to suicides and other “bad cases”.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe said the department needed to keep track of its progress in “reducing the number of very bad cases” and develop “a culture of learning from mistakes”.

The report also made it clear that ministers and senior civil servants accepted that the department needed to improve its procedures, stating: “We are confident that the wish for improvement has strong support at ministerial and top official level.”

Baroness Neville-Rolfe was asked to examine “whether DWP manages complaints in a consistent and efficient way and whether the department is learning systematic lessons when things go wrong”.

Her report added: “It was made clear that a primary focus of concern was suicides among benefit claimants.”

The completion of the report was initially delayed because of the pandemic, and Baroness Neville-Rolfe appears to have spent between 10 and 15 days’ unpaid work on her “quick dive” investigation, before sending the results to Coffey in September 2020.

She concluded that there was “no quick fix”, but it is not yet clear how many of her recommendations were accepted by ministers, and what impact they have had.

Coffey commissioned the report just a month after DNS had revealed how Errol Graham, from Nottingham, had starved to death in 2018 after DWP wrongly stopped his out-of-work disability benefits, leaving him without any income.

It also followed a report by the National Audit Office in early February 2020, which found DWP had carried out secret internal process reviews (IPRs) into 69 suicides of benefit claimants since April 2014.

DWP declined to say this week why the report was kept secret, and whether DWP ministers of the new Labour government agreed with Baroness Neville-Rolfe’s conclusion in 2020 that the department needed to reduce the number of “very bad cases” and develop a culture of learning from mistakes.

But a DWP spokesperson said in a statement: “The death by suicide of anyone who has used our services is a tragedy and our thoughts go out to their loved ones.

“We continue to learn from serious cases and improve our services for the millions of people who use them, and since this report was commissioned in 2020 we have implemented systems and improvements to support our most vulnerable customers.

“This includes more effective internal process reviews, better customer support and more co-ordination across the UK.”

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

Picture: Therese Coffey (left) and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

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