 requests, and postpones the publication of reports on claimants' deaths. The DWP also claims that data collection on claimant deaths would be too time-consuming and costly. The government is able to avoid accountability further due to the time lapse between the introduction of new policies and their eventual impacts - almost as if that was their plan. We saw this last year with the then minister for Work and Pensions Therese Coffey who was able to simply refuse to release any of the five reports into the running of the department including the effectiveness of support for vulnerable claimants moving from previous benefits onto universal credit, the impact of benefits sanctions as a deterrent and finally an internal investigation into the deaths of benefit claimants. As part of The Mirror's Disabled Britain, John Pring revealed that the DWP was responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths over 30 years and failed to do anything about it. But Coffey refused to release the documents into internal findings - because they were conducted by a previous minister. The Tory equivalent of shrugging and going 'Not my problem mate'. She even had the gall at the time to say: 'We do not have a statutory duty of safeguarding, though of course we do care about our claimants.' Mills and Pring have also criticised the secret internal reviews carried out by DWP into the d){kind=link}
‘The government knows that they might have blood on their hands, so are determined to stop this from being uncovered in any way possible’, writes RACHEL CHARLTON-DAILEY
It’s been a long hard slog for campaigners who are trying to uncover the true scale of disability deaths at the hands of the Department of Works and Pensions.
Today new research by the Deaths by Welfare Project. Dr China Mills and John Pring has uncovered that the DWP has used “delay tactics” to distance itself from deaths linked to government policies. The report finds that the department frequently delays responding to freedom of information (FOI) requests, and postpones the publication of reports on claimants’ deaths. The DWP also claims that data collection on claimant deaths would be too time-consuming and costly. The government is able to avoid accountability further due to the time lapse between the introduction of new policies and their eventual impacts – almost as if that was their plan.
We saw this last year with the then minister for Work and Pensions Therese Coffey who was able to simply refuse to release any of the five reports into the running of the department including the effectiveness of support for vulnerable claimants moving from previous benefits onto universal credit, the impact of benefits sanctions as a deterrent and finally an internal investigation into the deaths of benefit claimants.
As part of The Mirror’s Disabled Britain, John Pring revealed that the DWP was responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths over 30 years and failed to do anything about it. But Coffey refused to release the documents into internal findings – because they were conducted by a previous minister. The Tory equivalent of shrugging and going “Not my problem mate”. She even had the gall at the time to say: “We do not have a statutory duty of safeguarding, though of course we do care about our claimants.”