DWP publishes parts of secret reports that show fatal errors on universal credit, days after MPs vote for cuts

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has finally released excerpts of secret reports that show how its errors contributed to the deaths of universal credit (UC) claimants, just days after MPs voted for £2 billion-a-year-cuts to the UC health element.

Disability News Service (DNS) has been trying to secure the release of the information from DWP since November 2023, with the case eventually reaching the information rights tribunal.

DWP had to promise the tribunal that the information was “intended for future publication”, but it then waited to release it until MPs voted through the universal credit bill, and even then it only released part of the information.

The information released – all from secret internal process reviews (IPRs) completed by DWP in 2022-23 – shows there were 25 cases of serious harm or even death involving universal credit in which a civil servant identified “learning” for the department.

This information was held back from the public, and MPs, even though there are serious concerns that the universal credit bill* will increase the number of disabled people who are subject to strict conditions in exchange for their out-of-work benefits.

Many disabled campaigners say it is also unclear what will happen to the protection currently provided by the “substantial risk” criteria, which over the last three decades has protected countless disabled people at risk of suicide and other harm if found fit for work or work-related activity.

The IPR extracts reveal repeated and serious failings by DWP staff in the lead-up to serious harm caused to disabled claimants, and even deaths.

Information from IPRs from 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2023-24 has yet to be released by DWP.

Among the 2022-23 reviews, one IPR found: “Customer had difficulty accessing their [online UC] journal, but messages were still communicated via this channel.”

Another in the 2022-23 batch found: “The customer’s needs and vulnerability details were provided, but opportunities to support them and refer to other services were missed.”

A third review concluded: “Concerns around the customer’s welfare were not raised with the appropriate team.

“The correct process was not followed when the customer failed to make contact. 

“Colleagues did not respond sensitively when it was reported that customer had attempted suicide.”

A fourth review reported that one of the private sector providers of work capability assessments – it is not clear which one – “did not take immediate action when made aware that the customer was at risk of self harm”.

Yet another found that the “correct process was not followed when reviewing customer’s placement in the work-related activity group” and the universal credit team “did not share all relevant information on customer’s mental health with the Assessment Provider”, while the claimant “did not receive responses to journal messages they sent requesting support”.

The extracts from the IPRs do not make it clear which of the disabled people referred to suffered “serious harm” and which of them died following the department’s failings.

One of the most serious failings identified by the 2022-23 IPRs is that DWP civil servants are still failing to follow the strict guidelines known as the Six Point Plan, which tells work coaches and others what to do when a claimant discloses that they intend to self-harm or take their own lives.

Five years ago, DNS reported how IPRs into as many as six suicides between 2014 and 2019 were linked to the failure of DWP staff to follow the Six Point Plan, which was first introduced in 2009.

Two of the 2022-23 IPRs mention failures relating to the six-point plan.

One universal credit IPR found that the “correct process was not followed when the customer declared that they may attempt to harm themselves”, with the “agreed activity” following the review suggesting that this disclosure was made in writing.

Another IPR that appears to have involved the teams responsible for incapacity benefit, employment and support allowance (ESA), disability living allowance and personal independence payment (PIP), concluded that there had been “no evidence of any action being taken regarding there being a potential risk to the customer”.

The agreed activity was that one of the teams would “highlight to all colleagues the importance of using the six-point plan in all instances of customers declaring suicidal intent”.

Another disturbing cross-benefit IPR from 2022-23 reported how the UC team failed to inform their colleagues in ESA “on more than one occasion that the customer had advised of their deteriorating mental health and vulnerability”, while there was “a delay in requesting a safeguarding visit after receiving a journal message from the customer advising their mental health had deteriorated”.

And yet another IPR reported that a disabled claimant had “requested reasonable adjustments in how UC should contact them, which were not met”, while repeated attempts were made to contact the claimant to attend face-to-face appointments “despite them being unable to do so, with complaints made by the customer not being responded to”. 

The same disabled person had requested reasonable adjustments in how the PIP team should contact them, which again were not met, before their claim was closed “despite the customer responding to requests for information”.

DWP did not make a statement this week about the continuing delays in releasing the IPR extracts, but it claimed it had published more information on its most serious cases than ever before, which it claimed emphasised its commitment to transparency. 

Meanwhile, DWP has published its first Clinical Governance annual report.

The report, for 2024-25, describes how DWP has been able to “monitor and improve the clinical quality of its services and safeguard high standards of clinical care”.

The clinicians whose work it examines include the doctors, nurses, pharmacists and physiotherapists who work for subcontractors and carry out disability benefit assessments, DWP’s own occupational psychologists and work psychologists in jobcentres, and DWP clinicians working on policy, research and other areas.

Most of the figures in the report cover the first six months of the new assessment contracts that began last September and were awarded to outsourcing giants Capita, Serco, Ingeus UK, and Maximus.

It reports that a new approach, based on “NHS best practice”, is now close to being implemented, following an external review in 2023.

But despite the report aiming to monitor the clinical quality of its services, it fails to include figures that would show how many “near misses and issues” – including safeguarding incidents – are being reported by clinicians.

Instead, the report only provides percentage figures, which show what proportion of the overall number of incidents are safeguarding and claimant safety (20 per cent), how many are “clinician complaints” that have been upheld after investigations (31 per cent), and how many are information governance, such as data security breaches (39 per cent).

But without the number of total incidents, it is impossible to tell how widespread these failures are. 

The report also fails to detail the number of IPRs that were completed in 2024-25.

When asked why it was hiding the number of “near misses and issues”, DWP declined to provide a statement.

But it said the report presented these incidents in percentage terms to provide what it said was a balanced overview of trends, and that figures on the number of incidents can change and are frequently updated as investigations progress.

This means, the department said, that focusing solely on raw numerical figures could create a misleading picture and obscure the underlying trends and lessons learned.  

It said it would continue to review the best way to present the data, as the report represented only the first six months of clinical governance reporting.

*The bill will see cuts to spending on new claimants of the universal credit health element of more than £2 billion-a-year by 2029-30. By 2029-30, this will mean 750,000 universal credit claimants who cannot work for disability-related reasons seeing their health element addition frozen at £50 a week, compared to the £97-a-week existing claimants currently receive. Just 80,000 of the new claimants – less than 10 per cent of them – will be protected from this cut and are likely to be exempt from work-related conditions because they are terminally-ill or qualify for Labour’s new “severe conditions” group.

**The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence, DNS editor John Pring’s book on the years of deaths linked to DWP’s actions and failings, is published by Pluto Press

Credit for this article goes to John Pring with the Disability News Service