Stop collecting death stats if you like, DWP – it’s what you’ve got already that we want to see!

Public interest, not party interest: Thanks to Jim Moore for this cartoon. I've been waiting for a good moment to release it.

Public interest, not party interest: Thanks to Jim Moore for this cartoon. I’ve been waiting for a good moment to release it. Notice Iain Duncan Smith’s face looks like it’s behind bars – which is where many people believe he ought to be!

“The DWP has quietly decided to ditch statistics it used to collect on the number of deaths of recipients of incapacity benefits (now ESA) and its predecessors Incapacity Benefit (IB) and Severe Disablement Allowance (SDA),” according to Liberal Conspiracy.

The story, by Sunny Hundal, claims: “It is thought the numbers of deaths has sharply increased since the Coalition government’s severe cuts to social security benefits.

“But to ensure that deaths aren’t cited as evidence of failure of the changes, the DWP won’t be collecting and updating its statistics.”

No supporting information is provided and nobody from the Department for Work and Pensions is quoted. Does this change the chances of success for my Freedom of Information request, in which I asked for statistics in ESA/IB claimants who have died?

No. Not at all.

I requested statistics for 2012, which we all know already that the DWP has collected. They are there; they should be available.

The fact that they aren’t open for inspection is already incriminating, if you ask me!

My FoI request will be granted in the near future – even if the DWP finds another reason for refusal, the Information Commissioner’s office will overrule it. I’ve been through the rules. In this instance, it is Iain Duncan Smith who doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

If the DWP then claims that it has destroyed the figures – as seems to be claimed by the Liberal Conspiracy story – then we’ll be looking at a criminal investigation, I think.

There can only be one reason for hiding the figures – they must have risen and have not dropped. For the DWP to actually delete them, rather than allow them to be released, they must have risen sharply.

This would not only indicate the failure of Iain Duncan Smith’s policy – after everything he and his ministers have said, time and time again, about the fairness of the assessment regime, and how it is carried out in a humane way, this would prove that it is neither fair nor humane – and that, given the opportunity to stop the deaths from accelerating, these Conservative politicians allowed them to continue.

If a person knows that their actions are causing people to die, and does nothing about it, then an observer may rightly conclude that this person wants those deaths to take place. There’s a word for people who cause others to die – with the intention of causing them to die.

That word is “murderer”.

Or in this case, mass murderer”.

The net is closing, Iain Duncan Smith.

Nobody will think it is a coincidence, if the DWP really has binned its statistics on claimant deaths at a time when public interest is focused on the issue.

And to any DWP interlopers, reading this site because it is on a ‘watch list’: This is a very dangerous time to be working for that organisation. People who help others to commit murder are accessories to the crime and may also be convicted for the offence.

Tick tock, Tory boys…

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57 Comments

  1. joanna July 12, 2013 at 9:29 pm - Reply

    I personnally can’t see anything happening, the government seem to be above the law. It is too depressing to live in this world now!

    • Mike Sivier July 12, 2013 at 9:39 pm - Reply

      If I felt that way, none of the current fuss would be happening. The more people get up and make it clear that they don’t like what’s happening, they don’t want it and they’d like to see prosecutions of those responsible, the more likely it is to happen.

      The fact that you’ve replied to this article indicates that you’re interested, so why not give it a go? Find a way to publicise your opposition to these DWP ministers and their policies, and put your message out there.

      What have you got to lose?

  2. Nick July 12, 2013 at 10:47 pm - Reply

    The death rates cannot be made public as it would involve the police just as Stafford Hospital scandal A criminal investigation took place for the 1200 deaths

    for the government to release the true death figures for the welfare reform would involve a criminal investigation but this time at the governments door a very big difference from the staff at the hospital

    There is nothing one can do if the DWP will not release the figures and the mp’s and police turn a blind eye end of story as there is no one else to contact it’s all been done

    • Mike Sivier July 12, 2013 at 10:54 pm - Reply

      Who says MPs and the police will turn a blind eye? You?

      I say something else. Shall we see who’s right, rather than pre-judge the whole thing?

      • Nick July 12, 2013 at 10:58 pm - Reply

        my gut feeling mike is that is how it will play out and with regret I’m not normally wrong wish i was but my gut instincts tell me the sick and disabled are on borrowed time not all but most

        • Mike Sivier July 12, 2013 at 11:02 pm - Reply

          Well, I’m not going to sit around and wait for the axe to fall. I’m not disabled myself but I have friends who are and I see no reason to let their government attack them without a fight.

          • Nick July 12, 2013 at 11:18 pm

            your a good man mike i can see that it’s just a pity there aren’t more like you
            what you are doing is what your mp should be doing and that’s engaging in this blog and to bring some sort of comfort to those that read it

          • Mike Sivier July 12, 2013 at 11:41 pm

            My MP is about as useful as you might expect. For example, he voted against the cumulative impact assessment of what the benefit changes mean for people like yourself.

  3. Nick July 12, 2013 at 10:55 pm - Reply

    i have to face the facts that my own death through the welfare reform bill will no doubt come about and i to will be just another statistic

    so if you don’t see me around you’ll know what’s happened my wife will make contact with mike I’m sure but for me i have to give up as i look like a skeleton and my time now is short through the stress of it all

    • Mike Sivier July 12, 2013 at 10:56 pm - Reply

      I’d get on the phone to my local paper if I were you. Someone there should be able to do something.

      They’re not all right-wing mouthpiece rags, you know.

      • Nick July 12, 2013 at 11:14 pm - Reply

        I’m a very private person and would never go to the press or a food bank. i have always believed in that you worked you paid your taxes and if you fell ill or become disabled and you couldn’t work the state stepped in and that he how it should be

        to change the whole social structure because of the uk being on it’s knees is wrong those with excess wealth should be stepping up to the plate to pay any shortfalls they should not be going to there graves with millions of pound surplices for what good is that

        Steve jobb from apple is just one of many who died with vast wealth while the people who built his goods in china lived in poverty the uk is wealthy with vast wealth in London as well as extreme poverty

        David Cameron is the new money god and that is how he’s going to keep it and losing a few sick and disabled people along the way wont concern him

        • Mike Sivier July 12, 2013 at 11:40 pm - Reply

          It’s very private people like you, who would never go to the press, that David Cameron and his money gods rely on in their persecution of the most vulnerable in society.

          By your silence, you allow him to get away with it. Do you really want that on your conscience – if not with regard to yourself, then with regard to others who might be worse-off even than you (and I appreciate your own situation is extremely unpleasant, by your own account)?

          • Nick July 13, 2013 at 9:52 am

            i have tried the bbc in the past and they although sounded interested they said that i was to ill for interview (looking like a skeleton ) so declined
            my local paper said similar and in my experiences all it does is create like in George ralphs case a hate campaign

  4. Katy Rosewell July 13, 2013 at 5:44 am - Reply

    It shall soon become one of these nameless, faceless, deaths, my crime? To have survived cancer three times only to be murdered by my own government!

  5. Jason ItsRockdodger Sangster July 13, 2013 at 7:11 am - Reply

    in 10years time we will see the corruption of the current and past tory and Labour governments.. but as usual, They will be gone and always will be “Above the Law” When a decade passes it all seems to fade into the past! Well this time.. we cant let it dissolve.. We must keep this close to our hearts.. I urge everyone to document , record these criminals and there reassuring speeches as evidence against them. This time those assholes are going down..

  6. Fiona Goffe July 13, 2013 at 8:01 am - Reply

    Well done Mike and thank ‘god’ for people like you. What a sad dialogue though. I am probably in a similar situation to Nick and am overwhelmed and feel impotent although I totally accept that it is worth doing what I can, which I do, but I constantly feel I need to do more and just can’t cope with it physically or mentally. The impact psychologically on sick and disabled people is hard to convey, the utter desperation, terror and the feeling of betrayal and abandonment gets inside you and makes you feel you would be better off dead. I have succumbed to that feeling a couple of times but so far bounced back but it is getting harder and harder. We feel so hopeless and shocked that what is happening has been ‘condoned’ by the majority who fail to support us. There are so many attacks on so many sectors of society that everyone is running round like headless chickens.

    I cannot thank people like you more, you keep me sane. I was such a confident political activist always able to fight for those worse off than me. Until they came for me……

    • Nick July 13, 2013 at 11:26 am - Reply

      Fiona you speak for all the long term sick and disabled

  7. deborahellis2 July 13, 2013 at 8:54 am - Reply

    I am a retired teacher and care manager who had a stroke last month.
    For people who are suffering and having to fight a condition to hang on to life it is an extremely big ask, to then take on a corrupt and unfair political system!
    As an island, we have finite resources (obvious really) however in an effort to be part of the ‘boys club’ which is Europe our government constantly and consistently choose to use those resources indiscriminately.
    Instead of addressing the political difficulties at the heart of the system, our government picks off the ‘easy targets’ (the sick and disabled) to ease the financial burden an enable them to keep playing with the Big Boys!
    I have the utmost empathy for Nick but if his time is limited he must prioritize in line with his value system and allow others to carry on the fight!
    Power to you Nick

    • Nick July 13, 2013 at 11:00 am - Reply

      I’m just hanging on and as i look like a skeleton i have to believe that the police who look in on me every now and then will do something as to what who knows
      likewise my doctors my mp anyone if i could just get my mp to come round the house to see my body then who knows

      my mp come round the house 3 years ago and i showed him the top half of my body and he left soon after as he had run out of time 30 minutes per person per appointment

      pity that as he could have helped me now all he does is just email once a month if i’m lucky

  8. Brian Lovett July 13, 2013 at 9:05 am - Reply

    My word to the watchers, go to the Wikipedia, look up corporate manslaughter and how it applies to your government department.

  9. Chris C. July 13, 2013 at 9:16 am - Reply

    Do they record what people died of too? It’s that part of the death statistics that are suicides that I would find very interesting – if not horrifying,

  10. Anita Bellows (@AnitaBellows12) July 13, 2013 at 10:52 am - Reply

    I am not too clear about what this means. My understanding would not be that DWP will stop collecting the data, but that it will stop analysing it in such a way. But the data should still be collected as part of DWP normal data collection.

    • Mike Sivier July 13, 2013 at 11:24 am - Reply

      The story says the DWP won’t be collecting and updating the statistics, which seems pretty clear-cut.

      But we need evidence this this is the case before we can say anything for sure.

  11. guy fawkes July 13, 2013 at 10:57 am - Reply

    These comments prove that the sick are real troupers and fighters to the end,they have exhausted every avenue leaving them exhausted in the process and could surely leave this world peacefully and with a clear conscience.

  12. jeffrey davies July 13, 2013 at 2:30 pm - Reply

    yes taking away benefits cutting through sanctions and putting them into wrag yes another one wensday night im only finding out he had a leeter telling him he been moved into the wrag not nowing whot this meant but sadly the day before his appointment he died on his kitchen floor whot a carring lot who in charge are telling the public they looking after us but sadly killing us off jeff3 a very very sad jeff

  13. skwalker1964 July 13, 2013 at 6:08 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on The SKWAWKBOX Blog and commented:
    The government doesn’t want to acknowledge a link between its policies and death-rates among disability benefit claimants – so it just stops collecting stats on them. The DWP, and this government, are reckless and evasive once again.

  14. Nick Manning -James July 13, 2013 at 7:56 pm - Reply

    We have entered a sad and destructive, socially divisive era in this Country – where the poor, sick and jobless are marginalized to present a scapegoat in an attempt to cover up this governments incompetence. More worryingly this tactic seems to be developing sinister tones. Let us not forget the lessons learned from Hitler’s Germany.

  15. thepositivevoice July 15, 2013 at 1:09 am - Reply

    Reblogged this on thepositivevoice.

  16. rainbowwarriorlizzie July 15, 2013 at 3:40 am - Reply
  17. Sonophos July 15, 2013 at 11:05 am - Reply

    I have worked in IT for a while now and I would like to point out that we geeks just love back ups. EVERYTHING is backed up in my organisation, if it has been on the system overnight it is backed up, if it is on the system for more than a week it is backed up in 2 locations. We could if needs be revert our entire oganisation back to a state 1 day, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month or any of the last 7 years. Permanently deleting data is NOT an easy thing to do unless your IT staff are completely incompetant and/or complicit in a fraud.
    I would recommend you request that data is recovered from back up if necessary.

    • Mike Sivier July 15, 2013 at 11:10 am - Reply

      Thank you very much for that valuable piece of information!

      • Sonophos July 15, 2013 at 2:15 pm - Reply

        btw that includes e-mail… …y’know just in case enquiries need to look into who knew what when.

  18. Tony July 22, 2013 at 7:43 am - Reply

    I would urge everyone reading these blogs to share on Facebook etc. Evil cannot stand being dragged into the light. This information needs to go viral to keep it high in the public’s awareness. Call me paranoid (although a keen sense of paranoia and a questioning mind are the key components of an efficient bull***t detector) but keep an eye on Cameron’s porn blocking bill, it is the thin end of the wedge for internet censorship. How easy to block an embarrassing anti government blog by simply “accidentally” flagging it as porn. Would they really do that? What do you think…….

    Share share and share, and share again. Keep it alive and in the light.

    Peace to all

  19. Pam Sanby July 22, 2013 at 9:58 am - Reply

    I have posted this all over facebook:-

    No doubt many of you will pass this by thinking she’s banging on about politics again, but this is an important record of events!!

    In 2011/2012 – Nearly 12,000 deaths of disabled people occurred after being found fit for work!

    When requesting the figures for 2012/2013 from the DWP, under the Freedom Of Information Act, it is met with an out an out refusal!

    Now the DWP have said they’ll no longer be collating these figures!!

    My concerns with this are:-

    1) Why?

    2) What are the DWP and this government hiding?

    3) Have the deaths increased significantly?

    4) Are the deaths of the disabled the true desired result?

    It can only lead me to these conclusions. That the deaths have increased tenfold and this government want to hide this! If that is the case then surely now society will see that this government have a significant amount of blood on their hands!! But of course as the government are ‘not collating’ these figures any more we can’t discern that! I do not believe for one minute that this government have no idea about the amount of disabled that have died after being found fit for work! I may be disabled, but I’m not stupid! We, the disabled are getting wise to this governments true agenda!! Which I personally find extremely sinister!! You can call me mad, paranoid and delusional, that is your right, but likewise it’s my right to hold this opinion!!

    • Nick July 22, 2013 at 10:26 am - Reply

      my gut feeling is that the sick and disabled will be on their way out long term and that those that stick around like myself for years will be killed off

      • Brian Lovett July 22, 2013 at 11:00 am - Reply

        And Never! Never, take Statins…

      • Pam Sanby July 22, 2013 at 11:02 am - Reply

        Can’t help but agree with you Nick! There are quite a few people out there fighting this corrupt government though and hopefully they will be brought down!!

        • Nick July 22, 2013 at 11:30 am - Reply

          Being retired from the Establishment with ill health for many years i know what goes on behind closed doors and what’s discussed and i can tell you from the past it’s far from good
          it’s certainly way out to level that’s way off the scale and if only the young could hear what actually is discussed you could be sure that most of them would leave the country ASAP

          i know i should have done shows you what a fool i am

  20. Pam Sanby July 22, 2013 at 12:08 pm - Reply

    How depressing! The kids of this country have no jobs as it is and yes they would be best to leave!

    • Nick July 22, 2013 at 3:02 pm - Reply

      it’s not good Pam it was so bad some who know me well said it brought about my downfall who would have thought that the bad seeds were being sawn in 1979 and only eye got a glimpse of the future

      the odd thing thou Pam i could have gone into politics in 1974 before joining the establishment as Michael foot asked me to stand for labour having met him with my farther who at the time was the liberal agent for Lewisham as well as working for the establishment. well i turned it down as i was just 18 as i wasn’t sure what i could bring to the table apart from being a honest guy

      if i knew then what i know now you can be sure i would have gone into politics as i was popular albeit very young

      as a plus point since aged 20 I’ve been the housing chairman on all of the housing estates I’ve lived in and run them for free to save everyone excessive charges but am now retired from doing that after 35 years as the DWP felt it made my health worse

      i don’t see how as i wasn’t doing anything a good estate with the right tradesman employed should be able to run itself without my interference and that is how it was and played out I’m pleased to say

      • Pam Sanby July 22, 2013 at 9:43 pm - Reply

        I totally agree with you, this all started in ’79 and if we knew then what we know now perhaps things would be different! Isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing! I’m disabled with several serious illnesses and should I be found fit for work I truly do not know what I will do and how I will get by, mainly because this government have changed how you appeal and leave you no money to live on during the assessment period which could take months! I sometimes wonder what is the point of it all, but then I kick myself and fight on! Hopefully this government will be prosecuted for crimes against humanity!

  21. Mo Stewart August 28, 2013 at 11:35 pm - Reply

    This all actually started in 1994 …

    http://disability-studies.leeds.ac.uk/files/library/FROM-BRITISH-WELFARE-STATE-TO-ANOTHER-AMERICAN-STATE-2013-3rd-edit-FINAL.pdf

    It will continue to be a relentless struggle unless the national press are permitted to expose the real truth behind this nightmare and, to date, they all resist exposing reality and advise that they are ‘prevented’ from exposing the links between the DWP & Unum Insurance.

  22. Pam Sanby September 10, 2013 at 2:41 am - Reply

    Unum are discredited in the USA and have refused to pay out insurance claims even though they’ve been court ordered to! They devised the Work Capability Assessment, which isn’t a medical, it is set out to fail the disabled and thousands are dying within six weeks of being found fit for work!!

    • Mike Sivier September 10, 2013 at 8:51 am - Reply

      Those facts are well-known in these parts. In fact, I have been working hard to get more accurate death statistics from the DWP over the last few weeks.

    • Nick September 10, 2013 at 11:02 am - Reply

      one more thing that I’ve come to a conclusion on which a few may seam far fetched and that’s in going forward the government have created a climate of fear for all of the sick and disabled

      What this means is that every day for the rest of our lives there will be doubt as to our ability to work in the eyes of the government we will always have to think of ourselves as scroungers

      the constant retesting of our abilities to work will always be at the fore front of our mind and in turn will effect our ability to sleep properly

      slowly one by one we will die as lack of sleep and constant stress is always a killer

      For those fit today they to will be under the spotlight at the first sign of illness or disability and their deaths to will come about as the pressure they will face without any previous experiences of bad health or disability kick in as their home and marriage will be under the spotlight like never before and in reality start to breakdown

      getting bad health or a disability from being fit is bad news and in the past people may have lost their marriage but kept their home

      in the future however most will not only lose their marriage but their home as well

      The government has set in place a domino type of effect in going forward over the next 20 years and over this period of time very few sick and disabled people will be left alive only those that can support themselves will be left

      it is not only the sick and disabled thou that will be affected but all unemployed people anyone out of work wont even have a home and like the sick and disabled will go on to die a painful death from homelessness

      these are my findings and beliefs that the government will follow labour or conservative it wont matter as the death seeds have be sown and only a complete rethink on welfare reform will save the day

      by the year 2050 in all probability sick and disabled will just be words in the history book it will be just like when i was a kid in the fifties in London i never once saw a disabled person in 20 years sure they were there but you never saw them and you didn’t even know they existed

      And that my friends in summing up is the mountain we have to climb with us leading the way and may the good lord be with us every step of the way not just for now but for always into the future

  23. Pam Sanby September 10, 2013 at 9:21 am - Reply

    I wish you luck, I get your updates so I’ve been following you for a while. I hope the DWP stop digging their heels in!

  24. Jan Hamilton December 14, 2013 at 12:33 pm - Reply

    “The fact that they aren’t open for inspection is already incriminating, if you ask me!” …..very suspicious indeed, I’ve long thought this,but then releasing these figures will thus prove their policies are actually dismally failing the most vulnerable and killing people x

  25. Phil Heslop December 14, 2013 at 6:37 pm - Reply

    Keep up the good work Mike! This is a dangerous government! Not only do they try to regress this country to Orwellian times, they take us beyond Dickensian Times, back through history, to Elizabethan times. Yes, to Elizabethan times, where they had the ‘Deserving Poor’, and the ‘Undeserving Poor’! The disabled?…this government now classes them as the undeserving poor!

    How do they achieve this? Apart from the horrendous Atos ‘medicals’, they use words. Words like ‘Hard Working’, words like ‘Strivers’ and ‘Shirkers’. These words filter into the Press, and..slowly, but surely, these words take on meaning to the general population. The general population now believes that disabled people MUST be ‘shirkers’…the disabled MUST be ‘Workshy’…they MUST be ‘Undeserving Poor’!

    How do they do this? The answer is simple…..control the Media! Oh! and have a special team, set up to help…the ‘Nudge Unit’ (Official name is the ‘Behavioural Insights Team)

    It’s easier to gently ‘nudge’ people towards your way of thinking, so…don’t call the disabled downright lazy and a waste of money, instead…gently nudge others to believe that!

    And now, they seem to have deleted all their records, regarding deaths?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup_rotation_scheme

    The above link shows how companies back up their data…I am sure Government bodies will do the same!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  26. antistats December 14, 2013 at 11:28 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on antistats's Blog.

  27. Rosemary July 3, 2014 at 10:47 pm - Reply

    What has happened about this report? I have seen a DWP report showing that 10,600 people have died 2010 – 2011 due to Smith’s welfare reforms. Has he been able to wriggle out of it again?

    • Mike Sivier July 3, 2014 at 11:07 pm - Reply

      I am waiting for the DWP to respond to my latest Freedom of Information request for an update; there are nine working days left before I pass the matter to the Information Commissioner.

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