Contents
DWP faces cover-up claims after secretly weakening suicide rules 1
DPAC returns to the streets for ‘active resistance’ to DWP cuts 3
Shock and dismay over Welsh government’s care charge hike 6
Government ignores access in £6 billion housing scheme 8
Disabled politician won’t fight general election after ‘intolerable’ hate crime 10
DWP’s bank snooping laws ‘would create trap’ for claimants with social care accounts 12
Concern over new DWP foodbank rules 16
One in 10 disabled people left in debt for first time by cost-of-living crisis, says survey 18
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week 19
DWP faces cover-up claims after secretly weakening suicide rules
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is facing allegations of another cover-up after the minutes of a panel set up to examine “serious cases” failed to mention that rules on when to investigate benefit claimant suicides had been weakened.
The first meeting of the serious case panel took place in March 2020, just a month after the National Audit Office (NAO) revealed that DWP had strengthened its rules on when to carry out a secret internal process review (IPR).
The NAO had produced the briefing document in February 2020 after being asked to inspect DWP’s apparent failure to collect data on how many benefit claimants were taking their own lives.
The stronger new rules revealed in its briefing document meant an IPR had to be carried out when DWP became aware of any suicide of a claimant “regardless of whether there are allegations of Department activity contributing to the claimant’s suicide”.
But DWP admitted last week that the guidance was secretly weakened a year later, in April 2021.
This means the department now only examines suicides if there is already an allegation that DWP’s actions “may have negatively contributed to the customer’s circumstances”.
Disability News Service (DNS) has examined the minutes of all 14 meetings of the serious case panel, up to June 2023, and none of them mentions plans to weaken the guidance, including those meetings that took place before and after April 2021.
This is despite the panel’s terms of reference stating that it will “meet on a quarterly basis to consider serious systemic issues arising from cases and other insight” and will consider “various sources of insight” including “internal process reviews”.
Among its objectives is to “agree to recommendations for organisational learning” and “agree whether and how DWP need to take actions to improve processes and outcomes”.
But despite those terms of reference, the panel either never discussed the weakening of the IPR criteria, or it omitted those discussions from the public minutes.
For more than a decade, DNS has been revealing how DWP has covered-up evidence of links between its actions and the deaths of claimants, and how it has repeatedly tried to delay evidence of those links being released.
Academic and campaigner Dr China Mills has described this as “weaponising time”, a strategy to avoid being held accountable for those deaths, and denying justice to the relatives of those who lost their lives.
Imogen Day, whose sister Philippa’s death was caused by widespread flaws in the disability benefits system, said her family and others whose relatives had died due to DWP harm had been pushing for greater transparency and accountability by DWP.
She said DWP’s decision to weaken the IPR eligibility criteria and then cover it up was a step backwards in that campaigning and was “disappointing but unsurprising”.
She said: “How do they know what went wrong if there isn’t an IPR?”
The Day family had fought through the courts and in the inquest into Philippa’s death to obtain the IPR into her death, and they are believed to be one of only two families to have been able to see an IPR.
She said that accessing DWP’s review into Philippa’s death had given her family “unbelievable comfort”, and the decision to weaken the IPR criteria would mean other families would not be able to receive that level of “closure”.
She said: “It’s really upsetting that other families are not going to receive that comfort and that knowledge.
“They will continue to wonder what it is that they could have done differently, when in reality it was the system that harmed their loved ones.”
DWP refused to comment on the latest allegations.
Paula Peters, a member of the national steering group of Disabled People Against Cuts, said it was an “absolute travesty” that DWP was “covering-up such hugely important issues” as suicides linked to its own actions and failings.
She said the cover-up was “a slap in the face of every family who grieves”.
She said: “We need to hold them to account, but also the families deserve justice.”
The National Audit Office (NAO) had failed by noon today (Thursday) to say if it was concerned that DWP had weakened the IPR criteria so soon after telling the NAO it had strengthened them.
But an NAO spokesperson said: “Our 2020 report was in response to a very specific request about the cost of collating information within DWP.
“We reviewed what information DWP held and what systems DWP had in place to collate this information.
“We do not currently have any plans to repeat this work.”
22 February 2024
DPAC returns to the streets for ‘active resistance’ to DWP cuts
Disabled activists have announced a fightback against a series of “horrific” government social security reforms and have called for “active resistance” to the plans, starting with a national day of action and a protest in London early next month.
A meeting in parliament this week heard that disabled people could not wait for the general election, because there was no guarantee that a Labour government would reverse the government’s proposals.
Instead, they called for a return to street protest, led by Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), to resist Conservative plans to cut out-of-work disability benefits and introduce other harmful social security reforms.
That resistance will begin with a day of action on 4 March, which will include a protest in central London two days before the spring budget.
Monday’s meeting was attended by leading disabled people’s organisations from across the UK, and senior figures from two major unions: PCS, which represents many frontline DWP workers, and Unite, which has close links with disabled activists.
Among DPAC’s concerns are government plans to intensify the conditions and sanctions imposed on benefit claimants, and to tighten the work capability assessment (WCA).
They also point to proposals that will eventually scrap the WCA, and rely instead on the personal independence payment (PIP) assessment.
This could see benefit cuts for hundreds of thousands of disabled people and new powers for unqualified work coaches to decide what work-related activity a disabled person should carry out.
DPAC also says that hundreds of thousands of disabled people could be at risk of having their benefits sanctioned by the government’s roll-out of so-called “in-work conditionality”*.
Ellen Clifford, of DPAC and the UK coalition of Deaf and disabled people’s organisations that monitors the implementation of the UN disability convention, said disabled people were now faced with “another set of horrific proposals in the pipeline” after 14 years of their lives becoming “harder and harder” under Conservative-led governments.
She said Labour had promised to work in co-production with disabled people on social security policy if it won power, but disabled people remembered that it was Labour that introduced the WCA “and find it difficult to trust where that co-production will go”.
She said: “The line seems to be that Labour needs to present itself as being tough on welfare reform in order to get elected.”
She added: “We simply can’t afford to wait until after an election and definitely not for a lengthy process of co-production to start fighting back against these horrific proposals.
“We can’t wait for anyone else to stop them.”
Paula Peters, a member of DPAC’s national steering group, told the meeting that “strong and principled leadership” was needed to oppose the “completely unacceptable” government reforms and to raise awareness among the public about why they were wrong, but “Labour clearly isn’t going to do that”.
She said: “We need to build a united campaign that speaks loudly to say that these changes are completely unacceptable, and we need to demand instead a social security system that is fair for all, one that provides a social safety net that affords a decent living, one that we can access without having our mental health destroyed, and one that doesn’t kill us.”
She said that was why DPAC has called the national day of action for 4 March, two days before the spring budget, which will include a protest in London, and – it is hoped – other protests organised by local groups around the country, while DPAC will also suggest ways that disabled activists can take part from home.
Andy Greene, a member of DPAC’s national steering group, who has played a crucial role in past DPAC direct action, told the meeting: “I think there is a real need just to get back on the streets… and make sure we’re a street presence again, because I think that is where our strength came from previously.
“I think that re-establishing that commitment to street politics is important for any campaign.”
John McDonnell, the Labour MP, DPAC member and former shadow chancellor, who hosted the meeting, said he believed the event was about the “relaunch of a resistance movement on disability” after years of “cuts, austerity, stigma, threats, and, to be frank, abuse”.
He said it was vital to “demonstrate we are back again” and that disabled people needed to “mobilise” and “ruthlessly pursue” their demands.
He said: “I just get angry about it, that we are back to where we were after all these years, and there are too many people suffering as a result of that.
“So, this time we can’t allow ourselves to fail.”
Megan Thomas, policy and research officer for Disability Wales, told the meeting that disabled people and their allies “must fight these announcements with all that we have”.
She said Disability Wales research on the cost-of-living crisis had found an “extremely flawed” social security system that was “humiliating, traumatising and incredibly complicated”.
And she said the government’s proposed changes would “do nothing to support people into work and do nothing to support people out of poverty”.
Douglas Bryce, deputy chief executive of Disability Equality Scotland, said it was still unclear how the UK government reforms would impact on Scotland, as the Scottish government has introduced its own version of personal independence payment.
But he said he needed to “robustly highlight the potential danger of suicide and increased hospitalisation, particularly of those with mental health issues” if the UK government’s proposals are brought in.
Michael Lorimer, from The Omnibus Partnership, a grassroots organisation of disabled people in Northern Ireland, said: “The new proposals are brutal and will unquestionably cause more poverty, deaths and suicides if they are not stopped.
“For this, we need to unite across the UK to build a strong resistance, so that whoever comes to power at the next general election knows that if they cut disability benefits and dare to try what the Tories are proposing, they will face serious, coordinated grassroots opposition.”
He said that Deaf and disabled campaigners in Northern Ireland were organising to set up a Northern Ireland branch of DPAC.
Svetlana Kotova, director of campaigns and justice at Inclusion London, said it was vital to find a way to communicate the financial distress disabled people were facing to the general public “who the Labour party probably thinks wants them to be tough on social security”.
She said: “I want to think that they don’t know the horrific situation we are in and wouldn’t support further cuts.”
She called for support from other organisations for the Disabled People’s Manifesto, which includes a call for a rights-based social security system, abolition of sanctions and a decent income for disabled people.
Marion Fellows, the SNP’s Westminster spokesperson on disability, the only MP apart from McDonnell to attend the meeting, said she had spoken frequently in parliament about the pledge made by Social Security Scotland – set up by the Scottish SNP government – to provide “dignity, fairness and respect”.
She said: “That’s what most people expect, and that’s what should be a right for disabled people.”
Ian Pope, acting vice-president of the PCS union, and its DWP vice-president, said his union represented members who “administer this awful benefits system”, with many of them also subject to that system as claimants.
He told the meeting of the dossier of evidence that was presented to DWP late last year and showed the depth of the department’s “staffing crisis”, with his members “going under at an alarming rate”.
He said: “These testimonies demonstrated that the staffing crisis at DWP is creating an epidemic of mental ill-health among staff and has failed to protect the most vulnerable citizens in society.”
He said DWP had been trying – and failing – to recruit 20,000 more staff.
He said: “Why could it be that people don’t want to come and work in the DWP?
“Could it be that 25,000 admin staff at the Department for Work and Pensions, and I’m one included, are currently earning less than the national living wage?
“It is an absolutely shocking state of affairs.”
He said that many of the 13,500 work coaches who joined DWP during the pandemic have left.
He added: “They told the department when they left, and they told the union when they left: ‘This isn’t what I signed up for. I thought I was joining the DWP to make a difference, to help the most vulnerable people in society, not to issue sanctions, not to issue conditionality, not to harass people into offices.’”
He also pointed to Social Security Scotland’s “dignity, fairness and respect” pledge, and said: “Imagine the Westminster DWP putting that on their website.
“That has to be something we aspire to, everybody in this room, we have to aspire to, our future Labour government have to aspire to that.”
Brett Sparkes, a regional officer for Unite, which represents both workers and benefit claimants who don’t have jobs, said his union was campaigning against in-work conditionality.
He said that this and other government proposals, including changes to the WCA, “will increase the conditionality demands on disabled people to take jobs that not only do not suit them but offer no route to progression” and will keep people “in a cycle of low pay and insecure work”.
*Under in-work conditionality, those universal credit claimants who already have a paid job must still meet DWP requirements to look for further part-time jobs, increased hours from their current employer, or higher-paid jobs, or face a possible sanction
22 February 2024
Shock and dismay over Welsh government’s care charge hike
Disabled campaigners say they are “shocked and dismayed” by the Welsh government’s plans to allow local authorities to increase the maximum weekly amount that disabled people can be charged for their non-residential care by 20 per cent.
The government said in a consultation document that it was examining three options for the cap on charges – increases of £15, £20 and £25 per week – but suggested that £20 was an “appropriate” increase.
A £20 rise would increase the maximum weekly charge – currently £100 – to £120 and raise about £9.6 million extra per year for local authorities.
It claimed that if charges increased in 2024-25, “only individuals who have the financial means to pay” would do so.
But Disability Wales, the national disabled people’s organisation, which opposes all care charges, said it was “shocked and dismayed” by the announcement.
In England, there are no central government-imposed caps on care charges.
The consultation document says the Welsh government needs to address “the financial pressures on local authorities due to inflation and rising demand for care and support services”.
Currently, a third of adults in Wales who receive non-residential care and support services from their local council pay the maximum weekly charge of £100.
The announcement comes even though Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru have expressed a “shared ambition” to set up a National Care Service that would offer free social care, with an initial implementation plan published in December 2023.
The new consultation document claims: “Whilst raising the maximum weekly cap for non-residential care and support services is an initial departure from the vision to create a National Care Service ‘free at the point of need’, the additional revenue this would raise for local authorities to continue to deliver social care and support services would ensure we can uphold our commitment to long-term, sustainable change.”
It adds: “We remain committed to our vision for the National Care and Support Service in Wales, whilst also striking the balance between immediate pressures and long-term sustainable solutions.”
Disability Wales said the “minimum income amount” that the Welsh government says service-users must not fall below after paying any care charges was already “insufficient to meet the real costs of disability in addition to daily living costs”.
It said that increasing the cap on charges would “only exacerbate this and cause greater hardship, with some potentially opting out of receiving support”.
Rhian Davies, chief executive of Disability Wales, said: “As a member of the expert group that advised Welsh government on the development of a National Care Service that is free at the point of need, I am appalled that any consideration is being given to increasing non-residential care charges.
“It seems that the pressures on local government finances are being prioritised over the financial pressure on thousands of disabled people for whom social care support is a necessity but have limited means to pay for it.
“It is difficult to see from the proposals how Welsh government can guarantee the claim that only individuals who have the financial means to pay an increased maximum weekly charge will do so.”
Last year, Disability Wales reported that disabled people were already struggling with the cost-of-living crisis.
The Barely Surviving report found that disabled people in Wales had been “systematically” let down by the UK and Welsh governments during the “devastating” cost-of-living crisis, and that disabled people were “slipping through the cracks and struggling on their own” because of a lack of “joined up support” between the NHS, local authorities and the Welsh government.
Megan Thomas, policy and research officer for Disability Wales, highlighted the proposed increased cap on charges at a parliamentary meeting organised by Disabled People Against Cuts (see separate story), on the same day the Welsh government’s consultation was published.
She told Monday’s meeting the proposal was “something that we are fighting against”.
The consultation is due to end on 13 May.
22 February 2024
Government ignores access in £6 billion housing scheme
A £6 billion government scheme that will enable 20,000 affordable homes to be built across England does not require housing providers to build a single accessible property, the company running the programme has admitted.
Figures from three of the housing associations funded under the scheme show that just 11 of the 1,146 new homes they will be building – fewer than one per cent – will be suitable for wheelchair-users.
Last week, housing minister Lee Rowley announced a doubling of support for the government-backed loan fund, from £3 billion to £6 billion.
The Affordable Homes Guarantee Scheme, which provides low-cost loans to housing providers, is being backed by Rowley’s Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) and was launched in 2020.
Announcing the new funding, Rowley said: “We know getting cost-effective loans can be a stumbling block for many developers building more affordable homes or upgrading their existing stock, so it is of the quality tenants deserve.
“This new round opening today will not only improve the lives of those already living in homes, but help thousands of families benefit from new, high-quality, affordable housing.”
But Disability News Service (DNS) has established that housing providers that receive backing through the fund do not need to commit to building a single accessible home with the money they secure through the scheme.
Last summer, DNS revealed that the government had failed to consult on new rules that would force nearly all new homes in England to be built to the M4(2) standard of accessibility, even though its original consultation on raising accessibility standards for new homes ended in December 2020.
Introducing the M4(2) standard as a minimum would mean that nearly all new homes would need step-free access to all entrance-level rooms, as well as facilities and other features to make the homes more easily adaptable over time.
But DLUHC has still not launched the consultation, despite the publication of the government’s much-criticised Disability Action Plan earlier this month.
The Affordable Homes Guarantee Scheme does not ask housing providers to build any homes to M4(2) standards, or to the stricter M4(3) standard for homes that are suitable for wheelchair-users.
The scheme is managed for the government by investment manager ARA Venn.
Catherine Riley, chief of staff for ARA Venn, told DNS: “The scheme rules don’t contain specific requirements for housing type beyond being for social rent, affordable rent and affordable home ownership, and the housing mix built is determined by the registered providers that borrow from us, based on their assessment of local needs.”
She pointed to government guidance for housing providers seeking funding through the scheme, which includes no mention of disabled people or accessible housing.
But she declined to say how many homes had been built so far to the M4(2) and M4(3) standards using funding from the scheme.
DNS this week contacted four housing associations that have secured funding through the scheme.
Watford Community Housing, which has funding to build 300 affordable homes under the scheme – 200 of which have already been built – said that not one of those properties would be built to the M4(2) accessible homes standard or to M4(3).
Yorkshire Housing has funding to build 428 affordable homes through the scheme, and 134 of them will be built to the basic M4(2) standard, but just two to M4(3) and therefore suitable for wheelchair-users, although these numbers could change slightly as most of the homes have yet to secure planning permission.
Middlesbrough-based Thirteen said it had secured a £100 million loan through the scheme and was likely to develop 1,022 new homes with that funding.
Of those, 418 (41 per cent) are expected to be delivered to at least M4(2) standard and just nine (less than one per cent) are expected to be delivered to M4(3).
This means that just 11 of 1,146 new homes built by the three providers with funding under the scheme – less than one per cent – will be wheelchair-accessible, and 552 (fewer than half) will reach the M4(2) standard.
The fourth provider, Nottingham Community Housing Association, had not provided figures by noon today (Thursday).
DLUHC had failed to explain by noon today why it failed to include any requirements around accessible housing for its £6 billion scheme, and how it justified so few wheelchair-accessible homes being built with that funding.
But it confirmed that it imposed no requirements on developers other than under the scheme’s rules, as the aim of the scheme was primarily to build affordable housing, while it said it expected providers that secured funding to consider the needs of their tenants when deciding what type of housing to build.
DLUHC pointed out that government funding for its disabled facilities grant (DFG) scheme had risen from £220 million in 2015-16 to £625 million for 2024-25, helping to adapt about 50,000 homes a year.
It also pointed to its £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme, which runs from 2021 to 2026 and will see supported housing making up 10 per cent of the homes delivered; and the Department of Health and Social Care’s Care and Support Specialised Housing Fund, which has received £210 million from 2022-23 to 2024-25 to develop specialist affordable housing.
DNS revealed last summer that the government had abandoned its pledge to consult on three improvements to the DFG scheme.
Ministers promised in their People at the Heart of Care white paper in December 2021 to consult on the three changes “in 2022”.
But the Department of Health and Social Care admitted last summer – in response to a freedom of information request – that it had abandoned those promises.
Ministers have been repeatedly warned about the chronic shortage of accessible housing, with the Equality and Human Rights Commission warning five years ago that more than 350,000 disabled people in England had unmet housing needs, with one-third of those in rented accommodation living in unsuitable properties.
The Commons levelling up, housing and communities committee has launched an inquiry to examine what central and local government and developers are doing to ensure disabled people have access to accessible and adaptable housing in England.
22 February 2024
Disabled politician won’t fight general election after ‘intolerable’ hate crime
A disabled politician has announced he will not stand for his party at the next general election because of the rising and “intolerable” levels of hate crime directed towards him as someone with a stammer.
Chris Nelson has stood for the Liberal Democrats four times in Kettering, but he announced yesterday (Wednesday) that he would not be standing at the next general election, which will take place in the next 12 months.
He said he had been one of the few people with a stammer to have stood for parliament but could no longer accept the targeted disability-related hostility he has been subjected to, both from other local politicians – although never from any of the local MPs – and some members of the public.
He has been verbally abused, chased down the street, and had recordings of radio interviews posted online to mock his impairment.
Other politicians have made jokes about his stammer, with one describing it as an “embarrassment”, and he was told that one politician had asked a colleague at an election count: “How’s C-C-C-C-C-Chris doing?”
He said the “final straw” was an incident involving another politician that took place in a street near his home, which was later recorded by police as a disability hate incident.
He said he believed that it remained “politically acceptable” to mock people who stammer.
Nelson, a secondary school teacher, told Disability News Service yesterday: “Every time there is some person with a disability who gets abused, the people from [their] party are up in arms, and people in the opposition are looking for excuses.
“Every side is guilty of hypocrisy and every party has a minority of people that are a problem.
“The vast majority of people in my party have been lovely, and from other parties, but there is a minority that are abusive.”
He said that all political parties were equally guilty of such behaviour, although his party locally had been “very supportive”.
Nelson said he was “really sad” to have made the decision not to stand again, because he enjoyed the process of fighting an election, such as speaking to voters, and taking part in debates and hustings.
But he said: “It comes with a price and the price is not being able to sleep at night because of all this abuse.
“It’s not constant, but it’s regular and it’s there and there’s a degree to which you just go, ‘do you know what, I can’t live with this at the minute,’ particularly when you don’t see it getting better, and particularly when it seems to be getting worse.
“I feel quite sad, because my principles are such that I should keep going, but I have to put my wellbeing first.”
He said that both the media and political parties needed to address the issue of disability-related hostility.
He said: “There needs to be a culture shift within the media and the political sector in general, within political parties.”
And he pointed to the lack of people with a stammer on television, other than when they are “trying to overcome something, so we don’t have representation”.
Jane Powell, chief executive of the disabled people’s organisation STAMMA, which campaigns for people who stammer, said: “The consequences of mocking people because they talk differently can be, as in Mr Nelson’s case, career-changing. It is unacceptable.
“For this to happen in a political environment, and one which seems to encourage bullying and prize fluency over content, should shame all our politicians.”
She said Nelson had been subjected to unlawful harassment, and she added: “As a society we shouldn’t devalue what people say, because of how they say it.
“MPs need to model the behaviour that we want to see generally.”
She said STAMMA had set up an advocacy service to take on such complaints, to help cement its case that such behaviour was illegal.
22 February 2024
DWP’s bank snooping laws ‘would create trap’ for claimants with social care accounts
New laws that would give the government sweeping powers to carry out financial surveillance on benefit claimants would also pose a serious risk to disabled people who have set up bank accounts to pay for their social care, campaigners warn.
Measures in the data protection and digital information bill, currently being considered by the House of Lords, would give the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) powers to force banks to scan all their accounts to find those account-holders receiving benefits, as well as people connected with those accounts.
They will then have to report anyone who triggers what are seen as potential indicators of fraud to DWP.
Under current rules, DWP can only request details of a bank account holder’s transactions if there are reasonable grounds to suspect them of fraud.
The civil liberties campaign organisation Big Brother Watch has already warned that the potential for “expansive surveillance, high rates of error, and disproportionate impact on people in vulnerable positions is huge”.
But there are now concerns that the new powers would also see disabled people with care and support needs wrongly triggering fraud indicators, having their benefits suspended and being forced into intrusive interviews by DWP fraud investigators.
This is because disabled people who receive direct payments from their local authority to fund their care must set up separate bank accounts to accept that funding, and these accounts often hold thousands of pounds.
Dr Sarah Campbell, principal co-author of the Spartacus report in late 2011, which led to the We Are Spartacus online movement, has raised concerns with her MP about potentially being caught in such a trap.
She is concerned about the automated nature of the proposed system and how it could accidentally target disabled people on direct payments.
She believes she would be flagged up as a potential benefit fraudster because of her separate care account, which is currently several thousand pounds in credit.
Rick Burgess, a spokesperson for Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People (GMCDP), said the new powers would subject claimants to “second class status, reverses the constitutional assumption of innocence until proven guilty, and removes our right to privacy.
“It would be highly detrimental to anyone living with distress from anxiety or paranoia.”
GMCDP and the tech justice campaign group Foxglove are involved in a legal process over how the DWP uses algorithms to detect fraud, while GMCDP is also part of a coalition of rights groups convened by the civil liberties organisation Big Brother Watch, which is campaigning against the government’s proposed bank surveillance powers.
Burgess said: “We also know the DWP is highly secretive about its use of surveillance technology and that mistakes happen but are not acknowledged.
“Someone on direct payments could run the risk of non-disabled system designers and technology mistaking perfectly legal transactions as signifiers of fraud, because they are not familiar with how disabled people on direct payments organise their accounts.
“Furthermore, family members may find their financial privacy being compromised simply by interacting with those under DWP surveillance.”
Disability Rights UK (DR UK), which is also part of the Big Brother Watch coalition, called on the government to withdraw the “dangerous provisions”.
Fazilet Hadi, DR UK’s head of policy, said: “Whilst separate bank accounts are set up for the receipt of direct payments and to enable monitoring of payments and whilst the DWP is informed of these arrangements, the surveillance methods won’t pick up these nuances.
“Instead, it is likely that benefit claimants with more than one bank account will be highlighted and targeted.
“The unwarranted intrusion into people’s bank accounts is absolutely horrific and the potential for victimisation is likely to increase where there is more than one account.”
After Campbell’s MP, Dr Alan Whitehead, passed on her concerns to DWP, he received a response from the disabled Conservative MP and pensions minister Paul Maynard.
Maynard told him that “capital fraud and error, where claimants fail to declare or under declare savings, is consistently in the top four highest causes” of benefit fraud and error.
He said in the letter: “We know data exists outside the DWP which would help us tackle these losses therefore, gaining access to third-party data is an important and effective lever to help reduce benefit fraud and error.
“This measure requires third-parties to look within their own data and provide relevant information to the DWP that may signal where claimants do not meet the eligibility criteria for the benefit they are receiving.
“On examination, this data may suggest there is fraud or error and require a further review by the DWP, through business-as-usual processes to determine whether wrongful payments are being made.
“We will only seek to obtain minimal information on claimants that have been paid a benefit to enable further enquiries.”
He claimed that DWP would not use the proposed new powers to “monitor how claimants spend their money”.
He said the measure “does not target a particular group of benefit claimant, and where the data does not signal possible fraud or error there will be no further consideration or investigation”.
Maynard also claimed that “presently, the DWP equality analysis has not identified concerns about the impact on any groups with protected characteristics”.
But Campbell told Disability News Service (DNS): “The minister says this policy doesn’t target disabled people.
“A policy doesn’t have to intentionally target any one group to disproportionally affect it.
“Disabled people on direct payments must have care accounts in their name which can contain thousands of pounds.
“An automated system will wrongly and repeatedly assume their total personal savings are far higher than they actually are.
“No other group is in this situation, putting us at far higher risk of a fraud investigation unless a system is put into place to avoid this issue.
“We are already audited annually or even three-monthly on our care account. We do not need yet more scrutiny, interviews, stress and paperwork.”
Burgess said there was a “huge risk of mission creep” over DWP’s attempts to gain the new powers.
He said: “We know that once the state gains powers it invariably expands its use beyond the initial purpose.
“There is simply no way this power is practical, proportionate or democratic. It must be wholly opposed by anyone who believes in human rights.”
DWP told DNS that a human would always be involved in any decisions on any cases that were flagged by the algorithm and it claimed that any signals of potential fraud or error would be examined comprehensively.
It also claimed that it would not take any action where a claimant had income that should be disregarded for deciding DWP benefits.
But DWP declined to explain how an automated system would distinguish a claimant’s social care bank account from a personal account and so avoid incorrectly flagging a claimant for a possible fraud investigation.
It also declined to say how confident it was in the algorithm that would be used by banks to flag these accounts.
Instead, a DWP spokesperson said in a statement: “Direct payments for social care from local authorities do not affect entitlement to means-tested benefits – however, claimants still need to declare these types of payments so they can be disregarded.
“Our third party data measure will help modernise our fight against fraud – ensuring fairness within the system and that money goes to those who need it.
“This measure will not enable DWP to access any bank accounts or see how claimants are spending their money.”
DWP declined to explain why it wanted banks to pass on details of flagged bank accounts if it was not going to examine how claimants were spending their money.
Burgess said he believed DWP was simply being “pedantic” when it claimed that the new laws would not enable it to access bank accounts to see how claimants were spending their money.
He said he believed that once DWP had been alerted to a case of potential fraud – through the new powers – the next stage of its investigation would involve examining claimants’ transactions.
He also fears that – unless specifically prohibited in the wording of the new laws –advances in technology could eventually allow DWP to carry out “real time checking or sampling of accounts”, which would mean a frightening lack of privacy from the state.
22 February 2024
Concern over new DWP foodbank rules
Disabled campaigners and union allies have raised concerns about a new Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) policy that could make it harder for claimants to access food parcels.
They spoke out after the Guardian reported that jobcentre officials had been ordered to stop referring benefit claimants to food banks because of data privacy laws.
DWP claimed this week that it never refers benefit claimants to foodbanks, and that this policy had not changed, although it confirmed that it had changed what was included on what it calls “signposting slips”.
DWP is claiming that the changes to information included on the slips – which appears to mean they will no longer include the claimant’s name and other personal details – will help it avoid breaching data privacy laws when signposting claimants to possible sources of support.
It said it was up to foodbanks whether they wished to use signposting slips as a referral.
DWP declined to say how it had changed the slips.
The Trussell Trust, which supports a nationwide network of foodbanks, confirmed that DWP had never formally referred claimants to foodbanks and had “always signposted people to food banks as well as other local sources of support as appropriate, rather than formally referring them”.
But the charity said the changes to the signposting slips were “not ideal at a time when food banks continue to experience increased pressure and more people than ever before are needing to access support”.
It said the change “may have an impact on some food banks and we are supporting our network to adapt by providing… guidance and resources to help minimise any disruption that this may cause to the food bank or the people they support”, while it was also advising its foodbanks to “discuss the situation” with their local jobcentre.
Disability Rights UK said the new policy came as DWP was seeking sweeping new powers to carry out financial surveillance on benefit claimants.
Ken Butler, DR UK’s welfare rights and policy adviser, said: “Not content with paying benefits so low that claimants have to resort to food banks, the DWP is now refusing them what is in effect claimants’ own personal information to more easily access food help.
“This at the same time as seeking blanket powers to gain claimants’ bank account information without any justification of fraud suspicion (see separate story).
“In effect, we won’t give you your data but will grab yours behind your back.”
He said the new foodbank policy should be “reversed immediately to ensure no further hardship or harm is done to clients”.
And he added: “The decision itself is yet another reason as to why the DWP should be given a statutory duty of care.”
The concerns about the signposting slips were raised at a meeting organised by Disabled People Against Cuts in parliament this week, which was held to launch resistance to the government’s latest social security reforms (see separate story).
Ann Galpin, co-chair of the TUC disabled workers’ committee, told the meeting: “A high proportion of disabled claimants, women, families, are in need of a foodbank referral, and many people will [now] struggle to access the foodbank.”
Ian Pope, acting vice-president of the PCS union, and the union’s DWP vice-president, said PCS – which represents many frontline DWP workers – had only learned of the plans in the Guardian.
He said: “We immediately wrote to the department, seeking an explanation for what is the rationale for this.
“This could create another climate in our jobcentres where our members are being attacked because people are so desperate and they come to a jobcentre just to be turned away, and that cannot happen.
“It’s not that long ago that Tory MPs were posting on Facebook, Twitter, anywhere you want to look, about how many foodbanks they had in their constituencies, as if this was a great thing to shout from the rooftops.
“What an achievement! ‘I’ve got 10 foodbanks in my constituency.’ And now they’re not willing to send people from their own government department along to that very foodbank. An absolute disgrace.
“We are taking it forward and we had a meeting this afternoon with universal credit, one of the directors, and unbelievably they didn’t want to discuss it in that meeting, but we are not letting it rest.
“It cannot happen. Or members don’t want it to happen.”
Brett Sparkes, a regional officer for Unite, told the meeting: “It’s a sign of where we have got to in this country that we have got to such a low that the Tories want to take the last opportunity for children to eat out of their mouths.
“How did we get to this point?”
A DWP spokesperson said: “We do not refer customers to food banks and our policy has not changed.
“Our new signposting slips provide advice and guidance to vulnerable customers on local services where they can access further support.”
A Trussell Trust spokesperson said: “Now the new signposting slips are live, we will be updating the DWP on any impact that this change has had on food banks and those they are supporting.
“We advise anyone seeking support to contact their local food bank to confirm the organisations who can refer them or visit our website to find out about other ways of receiving help.”
22 February 2024
One in 10 disabled people left in debt for first time by cost-of-living crisis, says survey
One in ten disabled people say they have been left in debt for the first time because of the cost-of-living crisis, according to the results of a new survey.
The survey by disability charity Euan’s Guide also found that 50 per cent of respondents were concerned about their energy bills, while 51 per cent were worried about grocery bills, with 37 per cent concerned about vehicle costs.
Half (50 per cent) of those who responded to the survey said their participation in leisure and recreation had fallen, compared to just three per cent who said it had risen.
More than 6,000 people from across the UK responded to the survey, of whom 98 per cent self-identified as a disabled person.
One disabled respondent said: “I have told my husband to turn off my oxygen, my CPAP machine and my medical bed.
“We are putting at least £30 every other day on our electricity and gas and we just can’t cope or afford it. It really affects my mental health.”
Another said: “I use several machines dependent on electricity to help me function.
“It feels like the government are making it harder for me to be alive, and now I have anxiety to keep me company.”
A third respondent told Euan’s Guide: “I turned my central heating off last year due to the cost. We only had it on for an hour when absolutely shivering.
“We’ve cut back on everything yet are adding to our debt each month. How are families like us on benefits supposed to survive? It’s surviving not living.”
The survey also confirmed that the impact of the pandemic was still being felt, with nearly a third (31 per cent) of those who took part saying that they or someone they lived with was still taking Covid precautions when out in public.
Euan’s Guide was founded in 2013 by Euan MacDonald and his sister Kiki after he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease and encountered a lack of information about accessible bars in his home city of Edinburgh.
MacDonald, a powerchair-user, said: “It’s really saddening to see that disabled people are still being disproportionately affected by the cost-of-living crisis, with some even being forced to sell their homes to be able to survive.”
He added: “The survey results also tell us that disabled people need more disabled access information and that businesses don’t appreciate the importance of sharing their disabled access information.
“Businesses are undervaluing disabled people, in both social inclusion and spending power.”
The survey was supported by Motability Operations, with 94 per cent of respondents saying that a car was their main mode of transport.
22 February 2024
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
Hundreds of children with special educational needs have been waiting a year or longer to access support, as local authorities across England buckle under the strain of the demands placed on them. Freedom of information requests found that in some councils, children and young people have been waiting more than two years to be issued with an education, health and care plan. The results suggest that across England more than 20,000 cases were waiting longer than the 20-week limit, and as many as 3,000 for a year or more: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/feb/18/hundreds-of-children-with-special-needs-wait-a-year-for-support-in-england
Prisoners with severe mental ill-health are waiting too long for hospital care, says the chief inspector of prisons. A new report shows inmates are waiting an average of 85 days to be sent to hospital, with the longest wait 462 days – the threshold is 28 days. It comes a year after an inspection of a mental health unit in a prison near Bristol found it to be like “a Victorian asylum”: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-68299400
22 February 2024
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
