DWP hides seven secret benefit suicide reviews
The Department for Work and Pensions office in London.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is refusing to publish nine secret reviews into the deaths of benefit claimants, despite finally admitting that seven of them relate to people who took their own lives.
DWP only released the information after Disability News Service (DNS) lodged a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
DWP has also admitted that five of the nine reviews – which all relate to deaths that took place in the 16 months from August 2014 to January 2016 – contain recommendations for improvements in the department’s policies or procedures.
Ministers are refusing to publish the nine reviews, even though civil servants prepared them for release on 23 May – more than three months ago – under freedom of information laws.
The information commissioner is now investigating DWP’s refusal to release the nine documents.
Source: DWP hides seven secret benefit suicide reviews
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Would be nice to see some heads roll at the top but thats not the English way is it they get away scot free and some poor sod at the bottom gets the boot stuck in them for following orders
Wouldn’t this information mean that the minister in charge of the DWP at the time would be culpable should there be any wrong doing be discovered.
More knighthoods and awards for those public servants who tried to defend the undefendable in the name of the leaders of the DWP killing machine. Now disclose all those suicide deaths. .I cannot believe so few took the easy way out faced with impossible DWP decisions..
Shame on them all…… may they all be suitably rewarded in their hereafter
I’m taking it that you mean the DWP ministers and officials should be ashamed.
Yes totally……would be good to have some visibility of the names of all those offical decision makers who were party to the demise of these desperate souls. “We were only following orders” is no longer tenable in these times and these terminators must be held to account for this very serious situation so that they fully understand that their letters and benefit reductions/changes could result in the death of that claimant especially the most vulnerable..
Is anybody surprised about this? :(
It’s high time that the DWP and all it’s governing bodies were formally investigated for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, along with all the human rights abuses our own authorities have been turning a blind eye to while the UN have been finding them fully substantiated and accurate, and extending throughout the whole austerity policy of this and the preceding regime.
Why are our own law enforcement silent when even international condemnation is growing deafening? This was the first time a member government of the protocol on the rights of persons with disabilities has EVER been investigated, never mind found guilty, under the provisions of that protocol (which are binding in international law) but the reaction from the Mainstream Media has been complete silence. Probably because such a high proportion of them have been complicit in their portrayal of disabled people as scroungers, while we know the actual figures are dwarfed by corporate tax evasion, never mind the vastly greater figures for tax avoidance (exploiting legal loopholes) – which despite including in manifestos, the Tories have been careful to keep open instead of closing as they’ve been promising for years!
hmmm thousands and thousands have died at their hands aktion t4 rolling along without much of a ado
Nothing will change, with DWP I have been in a psychiatric unit and still suffer from Depression and other problems I was sent for a assessment in Blackburn mile’s away from were I live and had to ask a friend to take me,I was Knock bk so I appealed against the decision & went to court and won my case but only for a year so this is always on my mind this is the second time That I have had to apply and attend court it’s a joke and I can’t go thru it again Iam Terrified for next Time ! even with Doctor’s and psychiatry notes etc it’s a lottery.
Yes, you’ve been through the usual treatment.
There are many organisations able and willing to help you, if you need it. I can put you in touch with some, if you’d like.
Based on the scotomic culture of denial and obfuscation at the DWP, I’m surprised that they bothered to look into such deaths at all. Failure is normally ignored, left unanswered, biggest up falsely as a positive or coated with whitewash:
Question: “Is welfare reform a driver of the exponential growth in food bank use age?”
DWP: “The reasons for use of food banks are many and complex.”
(Example of a typical non-answer whitewash.)
Question: “Why is Universal Credit taking so long to roll out?”
DWP: “We want the roll out of Universal Credit to be done correctly rather than quickly.”
(Example of turning a negative into a positive: UC is late because they can’t get it to work not because the DWP being careful.)
Question: “Isn’t it unreasonable to expect citizens with no experience in using and/or no easy access to IT to have to claim and manage Universal Credit accounts via the internet, smart phones and computers?”
DWP: “Encouraging people to become familiar with information and communications technology will make them more employable”
(Falsely turning a negative into a positive: UC demands claimants to use IT for cost cutting purposes rather than educational reasons.)
The Orwellian double-speak used by the DWP is a national disgrace,
Anybody with any sense at all can see through it to the bleak and pernicious reality it attempts to hide.
I have no idea what the word “scotomic” means and cannot find it in a dictionary.
Other than that, I agree with your comment 100 per cent.
Heads at the top should roll, i.e. the government but they weren’t and will get away with it and continue with their persecution of the people and the morons of our country who believe every BS word they come out with will continue to do and say nothing!