Tag Archives: Pensions

DWP is fighting the release of secret reports on benefit claimants – again

If you’re wondering what happens to the money the government saves by cutting off the benefits that people need and deserve, it seems the DWP uses it to fend off legal demands for it to publish reports on the harmful consequences of doing so.

According to Disability News Service, the department has been ordered to publish two such reports and is likely to spend multiple thousands of pounds trying to keep them out of the public domain.

Why would it do that, if there was nothing questionable in their contents?

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Here’s DNS:

The first report was a written assessment of how the government’s decision to abolish the work capability assessment (WCA) would impact millions of disabled people and other groups protected under the Equality Act.

Under the plans, disabled people who cannot work will only be able to qualify for a new health element of universal credit if they also receive personal independence payment (PIP), disability living allowance, or, in Scotland, adult disability payment.

But this would also mean that it would be left to DWP’s over-worked work coaches – who will usually have no health-related qualifications – to decide if a disabled person should carry out work-related activity.

DNS had told the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) that although the WCA has been “closely linked to the deaths of hundreds of disabled people”, the plans to scrap it could lead to further deaths of claimants.

The second report describes the impact of DWP errors on “vulnerable” benefit claimants, which it has admitted could have a “negative” impact on its reputation.

The report contains “worst case scenario” information that DWP has calculated about the impact of its errors on claimants, which it appears keen to keep hidden from the public, and probably includes estimates of how many claimants have been harmed by its errors.

DWP has argued that this information was only intended to be considered by its serious case panel and that “some of the information, if presented in its current format, could have a negative reputational impact on DWP”.

Between 2013 and 2015, I spent two years campaigning for information on the number of people who died after being denied Employment and Support Allowance to be released.

The Information Commissioner’s Office eventually ruled that the data must be published – but the DWP said it only had information on deaths within two weeks of a decision.

This still showed 2,400 people had died over a period between 2011 and 2014 – after the DWP had decided that they were perfectly healthy and did not deserve the benefit they were claiming.

Why did they die, then?

It seems the currently-disputed reports are on similar lines – discussing the harm that may happen to patients if the government goes through with current plans, based on the experience of what has happened in the past.

That is why it is so important for them to be published; they may contain information on harm the DWP knows it has caused.

If DWP bosses know their policies and decisions have caused undue harm, why are they pushing ahead with them – or worsening them?

Source: DWP set to waste thousands fighting release of two secret reports – Disability News Service


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Millions of benefits will be halted ‘if you refuse’ says Scrooge Stride. Refuse? To do what?

Persecution: the Tories are up to their usual tricks – claiming that benefit claimants are refusing to look for jobs.

Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride is courting “Scrooge” comparisons by wheeling out an old Tory attack line against benefit claimants – at Christmas.

The line is that benefit claimants refuse to look for work:

The Department for Work and Pensions could stop your payments next year – if claimants refuse to look for work. Ahead of Christmas, a renewed warning from the DWP has been circulating with claimants tasked with more strident attempts to get into work next year.

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Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride warned: “These back-to-work reforms strike at the heart of the quid pro quo that defines the contract between the state and the individual. The government will provide you with the support you need to move into work but if you fail to keep your side of the bargain, if you refuse to engage or ignore available job opportunities, we will stop your job benefits.”

Experience suggests this may be a renewed attempt to force jobseekers into employment that pays less than they would receive on benefits – making a mockery of the claim that work is the best way out of poverty.

But who actually refuses to look for work? Very few people. If there is a glut of jobs that aren’t being filled, it’s probably because they simply aren’t worth taking.

Then again, the Tories have been making big speeches that employers should offer more pay to workers. If anything comes of that, they may see jobless figures falling.

But if they want to save money – or take money for the government – then they should be cracking down on tax avoidance and evasion rather than benefit fraud. And that is something the Tories will never do.

Source: DWP warns millions of benefits will be halted ‘if you refuse’


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After coroner’s warning over death of disabled man, benefits process to get HARDER

[Image: Black Triangle Campaign].

What are the courts going to do about this?

The excellent Disability News Service is reporting that a coroner has ordered Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride to take action that will prevent flaws in the Universal Credit system leading to further deaths after a disabled man became overwhelmed by the application process and committed suicide.

Instead, it seems Stride is determined to increase the death toll exponentially.

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Here’s the DNS story:

It states:

An inquest into the death of Kevin Gale earlier this month heard from his psychiatrist, who expressed significant concerns about the way mental health service-users were supported with their universal credit claims within DWP.

The inquest also heard from the trust’s nursing director, who told the coroner that they considered the issues identified by the psychiatrist to be “national” and said they were “debilitating for service users”.

Kevin Gale, who is believed to have worked previously as a window cleaner, took his own life on 4 March 2022.

Coroner Kirsty Gomersal sent a Prevention of Future Deaths report to Stride.

She pointed to the “number of and length” of the universal credit forms that had to be completed which “can be overwhelming for someone with a mental health illness”, and which are “perpetuated if the applicant cannot get help to complete the paperwork”, while also highlighting the “long telephone queues to speak to a DWP advisor”.

She added: “Having to travel long distances for appointments can be detrimental for those with a mental health illness.”

And what’s happening to the benefit system?

Here’s The Independent:

Jeremy Hunt has warned those who “coast” on benefits will lose handouts if they refuse to take a job as part of a new crackdown.

Claimants deemed fit to work, but who fail to take steps to find employment, will be cut off from accessing benefits such as free prescriptions and dental treatment, help from energy suppliers and cheaper mobile phone packages.

Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, said that schemes to help people back into the workforce would also be expanded as part of a new £2.5bn five-year long back-to-work plan.

Under the plan, claimants will be forced to accept a job or undertake work experience to improve their prospects. Those who fail to do so will be hit with an “immediate sanction”.

At the moment, claimants can face open-ended sanctions where they have their benefits stopped. Those under this sanction for more than six months will now have their claims closed, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said, which would also end their access to other benefits such as free prescriptions and legal aid.

Mr Stride said: “…We are expanding the voluntary support for people with health conditions and disabilities, including our flagship Universal Support programme.

“But our message is clear: if you are fit, if you refuse to work, if you are taking taxpayers for a ride – we will take your benefits away.”

Overall, the government says expanded help-to-work schemes will help more than 1 million people over the next five years.

Part of this package includes plans to add another 100,000 people to the Individual Placement and Support scheme, which aims to get those with severe mental illness quickly into paid employment.

Mandatory work trials will be rolled out, meaning that claimants will be forced to accept a job or do work experience to improve their prospects, and those who fail to do so will be hit with “immediate sanction”.

Reform of the “fit note” system will also be explored under the plans. In a trial in certain, fit notes, an alternative to sick notes which set out what work someone can do, will be handed out by the benefits system, not doctors.

So, after receiving an order from the courts to make it easier for people with severe mental health problems to claim disability benefits, Stride and Hunt have chosen to make it many orders of magnitude harder.

And we can all see them:

The last of the ‘X’ posts above makes an extremely good point.

If these changes are being made in order to allow the government to make tax cuts in advance of a general election, then the Tories will once again be pushing the most vulnerable people in society to their deaths, to make already-comfortable people a little better-off.

Are you disabled or suffering from a long-term sickness? Do you want to die to boost the bank account of someone who is already wealthy?

Are you a Tory voter? Do you have sick or disabled relatives and/or friends?

Which of them do you want to see die, so you get a tax cut that will induce you to vote Tory again?


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Top law firm invites Mel Stride to start pension mediation for 50s women | Westminster Confidential

David Hencke’s ever-informative Westminster Confidential site provides this update on the struggle to get restitution for women who have been harmed by changes to the pension system:

One of London’s top law firms has written to Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, inviting him to agree to mediation talks to end the long suffering impasse on awarding compensation to the now 3.5 million 50s born women who had to wait another six years before they got their pension.

[A] report into the issue was published at the end of November and concluded that there was direct discrimination … women who were born from 1950 to 1960 had been singled out to wait for their pension while everyone else was unaffected.

It has also to be taken into account that 9.8m men were given 5 years free auto credits to retire 5 years early, aged 60, whilst the state pension of 3.8m 1950’s women was twice deferred, by stealth, and they were then coerced back to work for up to another 6 years having been denied the promised similar auto credits awarded to men.

The report [was hand-delivered] to Rishi Sunak at Downing Street just before it was published. It was also delivered to Robert Behrens, the Parliamentary Ombudsman, who is currently involved in a long inquiry into how much the women should be compensated after finding partial maladminstration.

It might be instructive to contrast this with another case of discrimination against women, that has been in the news recently; I refer to that of Birmingham City Council, which used a bonus scheme that unfairly benefited men more than women while it was run by a Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition and then was under no overal control, between 2004 and 2010.

After a court battle, the council was ordered to pay £760 million to settle equal pay claims – and attempting to comply has caused the council to declare (effective) bankruptcy. Tory MPs have made a big fuss of the fact that a council that is now run by Labour has been financially embarrassed, even though it was their party that caused the problem.

The UK government cannot go bankrupt; it can always issue currency to cover any spending it has to make (although there should be a balancing tax take, to counter inflation).

But, so far, it has resisted calls to compensate women harmed by the state pension changes, even though those changes were clearly discriminatory against them.

Hypocrisy? What gives the Tory government the right to avoid a responsibility that the law has thrust onto a local authority – with the enthusiastic support of Tory MPs?

Source: Exclusive: Top law firm writes to Mel Stride inviting him to start mediation talks on restitution for 50swomen | Westminster Confidential


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Court forces DWP to change scheme deducting cash from benefits to pay debts/bills

Putting a brave face on it: Mel Stride.

The Department for Work and Pensions is being forced to rethink a scheme to pay debts and bills directly out of a person’s benefits without discussing it with them first.

The Court of Appeal has confirmed that the current guidance on the Third Party Deduction (TPD) scheme issued by the DWP is unlawful because it says there is no point in finding out whether a claimant’s personal circumstances affect whether deductions should be made, since it only makes a difference in very few cases.

The court said this is very close to saying that the interests of the claimant are irrelevant, which is precisely the opposite of what the regulations demand.

The decision was in response to Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride’s appeal against the findings of a judicial review brought by benefit claimant Helen Timson.

The review found in her favour last September and the appeal was heard in April. Now the Appeal Court judges have ruled unanimously that the way the DWP operates the scheme is unfair.

Lord Justice Edis said:

The submission of the Secretary of State… comes down to the proposition that because only in very few cases can the personal circumstances of the claimant or their family make any difference, there is no point finding out what they are.

This is very close to saying that the interests of the claimant are irrelevant, which is precisely the opposite of what the regulations say.

The Secretary of State can only make a TPD direction after forming an opinion or being satisfied about the interests of the particular claimant and family under consideration.

The regulations therefore require that their interests are assessed in the light of all relevant information which must include anything they wish to say on the subject. After forming that judgment the Secretary of State may make a TPD direction.

He added:

In my judgment, the regulations, by framing the decision-making as they do, require a consideration of the interests of the individual claimant and their family.

Under the guidance, however, the decision-maker has the option of contacting them, or of investigating their benefit records, but the guidance allows a decision to be made where the claimant or their family has been given no opportunity to supply information beyond what the utility company puts in the spreadsheet.

This appears to me to be obviously unfair.’

This is an important victory for anybody who might be affected by deductions in the future – and the High Court judgment recorded that there were more than 250,000 deductions in respect of water, electricity and gas debts last year.

In the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, it seems reasonable to expect the relevant utility firms to make increasing numbers of TPD requests in the foreseeable future.

This judgment means no deductions may be made without first discussing the extent of any hardship they are likely to cause with the claimant. This may lead to the request being turned down.

But it isn’t all good news: the judgment applies to deductions for utility charges from legacy benefit (non-Universal Credit) only. The DWP can make deductions from benefit for other things which don’t have the same statutory requirement to be in a person’s ‘interests’ (e.g. for council tax, fines, and child support) and so will not be caught by this judgment.

Source: Bindmans client success in Third Party Deductions Scheme appeal


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The Tyranny of Tickboxes – How the U.K. government is escalating its war on disability rights in 2023 | Black Triangle Campaign

Here’s an article that’s well worth reading – but This Site won’t re-publish much of it here because the information has already been covered by Vox Political elsewhere.

For now, let’s limit ourselves to this:

After years of the war on the poor,worsening mental health, increasing mass hunger and suicides, the UK government has announced a further round of attacks. Two measures stand out.

There will be more benefit sanctions, where benefits are stopped if people are deemed to have failed to look for work. This will add to the over 2 million food parcels a year currently needed. It will also push more vulnerable people into taking their own lives.

And the main test for Employment and Support Allowance will be abolished. If this had been done out of a belated recognition of the harm these tests have caused in the lives of millions of people, it would be a good step. It is not. Instead, the feared Work Capability Test will be replaced by something even worse: the kind of test currently used for another benefit – Personal Independence Payment or PIP.

It is notoriously difficult to pass the PIP test, and be awarded benefits, especially if your main disability is a mental health issue.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that 1 million people will be deprived of benefits because of the extension of the PIP test into assessments for ESA.

The scene is being set for all the harm already done by ‘Welfare Reform’ to be added to massively.  

We have beaten such changes before and it is entirely possible to do so again.

Expect a new wave of information detailing how that can happen – starting soon.

Source: The Tyranny of Tickboxes – How the U.K. government is escalating its war on disability rights in 2023 – Black Triangle Campaign


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The main points: it’s Vox Political’s morning headlines

DWP accused of ‘denying people their rights’ after rejecting 90% of disability benefit appeals

Food inflation: actual shop prices hit new high

Exposed: payments to LABOUR Health spokesman from private health firms

Under Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting, Labour Party policy has changed from returning the National Health Service to full public control into allowing it to be converted into even more of a front for private firms to profit from your illness.

Is the reason for this the fact that Streeting is being paid a small fortune every year by private health representatives? See for yourself:

Energy firms consulted on plan for extra profit

Energy prices are coming down at last, so what is the regulator Ofgem doing? It’s consulting the companies on a plan to increase their profit so they can be “financially resilient”.

They just made a killing (sadly, in some cases this may be said to be literal) on prices over the last year but this cash went straight to shareholders, it seems. Wouldn’t it have been better to fix dividends at a lower level and put more of that money into “financial resilience” rather than fleecing the public again?


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Report on how officials failed to prevent Errol Graham’s death is compromised by dishonesty

Death by DWP: Errol Graham.

Well done to the mainstream media for finally reporting on the case of Errol Graham, nearly five years after he starved to death, having lost his benefits due to a Department for Work and Pensions decision.

And no – that comment is not meant well.

With a little more media attention, it seems likely that the DWP would not have been able to hide information from the Nottingham City Adult Safeguarding Board, whose review of the case, published this week, may now have to be revised.

Disability News Service, which broke the story in 2020, has provided documents that seem to have been withheld by the DWP, and says the Safeguarding Board is now reviewing them alongside its own actions.

Let’s just remind you of the circumstances of the case:

The Department for Work and Pensions ignored its own safeguarding advice to deprive Errol Graham of his benefits.

Left with no income, Mr Graham starved to death.

He had been receiving incapacity benefit, and then ESA, for many years as a result of enduring mental distress that had led to him being sectioned.

The DWP stopped Mr Graham’s Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) entitlement – and backdated that decision to the previous month – after making two unsuccessful visits to his home to ask why he had not attended a face-to-face Work Capability Assessment (WCA) on August 31, 2017.

He had not been asked to fill in an ESA50 questionnaire, though. Why not?

The government department managed to stop an ESA payment that had been due to be credited to his bank account on October 17, the same day it made the second unsuccessful safeguarding visit.

Its own rules state that it should have made both safeguarding visits before stopping the benefits of a vulnerable claimant.

Not only that, but the DWP had needed – but failed – to seek further medical evidence from Mr Graham’s GP, in order to make an informed decision about him.

In fact, it seems this would not have made much difference as Mr Graham’s GP had not seen him since 2013, or recalled him for vital blood tests or issued prescriptions since 2015, despite medical conditions including significant, long-term mental distress and hypothyroidism.

Because he had lost his entitlement to ESA, Mr Graham’s housing benefit was also stopped.

When bailiffs knocked down his front door to evict him on June 20, 2018, they found a dead body that weighed just four and a half stone. The only food in the flat was a couple of out-of-date tins of fish.

Mr Graham was 57 years old.

On an ESA form years before, he had told the DWP he could not cope with “unexpected changes”, adding: “Upsets my life completely. Feel under threat and upset…”

He said: “Cannot deal with social situations. Keep myself to myself. Do not engage with strangers. Have no social life. Feel anxiety and panic in new situations.”

So without warning, the DWP flung him into exactly the kind of new – and harrowing – situation that he would be unable to handle.

Now it seems that

An independent safeguarding review into the “shocking and disturbing” events leading to Graham’s tragic and lonely death concluded that multiple failings by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), his GP practice, and social landlord meant that chances to save him were missed.

Describing Graham as a “man in acute mental distress who had shut himself away from the world”, Nottingham City Adult Safeguarding Board said decisions taken by all three agencies had exacerbated his problems towards the end of his life rather than supporting him.

Strange, that. How many years has it been since the DWP and the Tory government in general started insisting that their decisions always support benefit claimants?

That clearly seems to have been untrue. Agreed?

The review said DWP and Nottingham City Homes had failed to understand why Graham did not respond to their letters, texts and home visits, and so did not grasp the extent of his vulnerability when they left him without money, food and on the verge of homelessness.

Although both agencies had followed their own procedures correctly when they took critical decisions to deny Graham of vital services, the review makes clear such procedures were based on “partial information and misconceptions” about why Graham had refused to engage with them.

How did they follow their own procedures correctly? My understanding is that the failed to follow their own safeguarding advice. It was known that he was a vulnerable claimant so, after he failed to attend an appointment, why did the DWP stop his benefit – and backdate the stoppage – before it had carried out the two safeguarding visits it was required to do?

Why hadn’t the DWP sought further medical evidence about him, as required?

It was known that he could not cope with “unexpected changes”, as he had made it clear in an ESA form years before.

Oh… but the DWP never provided that information to the Safeguarding Board. Isn’t that outright dishonesty?

The Safeguarding Board said

A key lesson from Graham’s death was that his refusal to engage with support services did not negate his vulnerability and was not an excuse for inaction on the part of service providers. “Indeed, non-engagement may be a sign of increased vulnerability,” it concluded.

But that wasn’t the problem – in fact, it was the opposite of it. The problem was the refusal of the DWP – and others – to engage with Errol Graham.

In response to the report’s publication earlier this week, the DWP said it acknowledged that the government department had improved its processes since Mr Graham’s death.

But that was based on false information, because the DWP had not been honest with the Safeguarding Board. In fact, one might say it had refused to engage properly.

I wonder how the DWP will respond if the report is changed and a much more negative verdict is returned.

Source: Chances were missed to save man who starved in Nottingham, report finds | Welfare | The Guardian


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Do you meet any of these 57 conditions to qualify for Attendance Allowance?

This is another public service announcement. It’s not exactly a certain beans company’s “57 varieties” but can you make use of the following?

Attendance allowance is given if you have a disability severe enough that you need someone to help look after you.

According to the DWP’s official guidance, there are 57 main medical conditions that could qualify you for attendance allowance. They are as follows:

  • Arthritis
  • Spondylosis
  • Back pain – other/precise diagnosis not specified
  • Disease of the muscles, bones or joints
  • Trauma to limbs
  • Visual disorders and diseases
  • Hearing disorders
  • Heart disease
  • Respiratory disorders and diseases
  • Asthma
  • Cystic fibrosis
  • Cerebrovascular disease
  • Peripheral vascular disease
  • Epilepsy
  • Neurological diseases
  • Multiple sclerosis
  • Parkinson’s disease
  • Motor neurone disease
  • Chronic pain syndromes
  • Diabetes mellitus
  • Metabolic disease
  • Traumatic paraplegia/tetraplegia
  • Major trauma other than traumatic paraplegia/tetraplegia
  • Learning difficulties
  • Psychosis
  • Psychoneurosis
  • Personality Disorder
  • Dementia
  • Behavioural disorder
  • Alcohol and drug abuse
  • Hyperkinetic syndrome
  • Renal disorders
  • Inflammatory bowel disease
  • Bowel and stomach disease
  • Blood disorders
  • Haemophilia
  • Multi system disorders
  • Multiple allergy syndrome
  • Skin disease
  • Malignant disease
  • Severely mentally impaired
  • Double amputee
  • Deaf/blind
  • Haemodialysis
  • Frailty
  • Total parenteral nutrition
  • AIDS
  • Infectious diseases: viral disease – Covid-19
  • Infectious diseases: viral disease – precise diagnosis not specified
  • Infectious diseases: bacterial disease – tuberculosis
  • Infectious diseases: bacterial disease – precise diagnosis not specified
  • Infectious diseases: protozoal disease – malaria
  • Infectious diseases: protozoal disease – other/precise diagnosis not specified
  • Infectious diseases – other / precise diagnosis not specified
  • Cognitive disorder – other / precise diagnosis not specified
  • Terminally Ill
  • Unknown

The source article lists functions for which you might need help, that would qualify you for the payments, so take a look at it for more information.

Source: DWP list of 57 health conditions that qualify you for Attendance Allowance worth over £400 a month – LancsLive


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