DWP spent £50,000 trying to stop release of review into disabled man’s death

14 comments

1. Paywall. 🤷‍♂️

2. The entire article copied and pasted.

   “DWP spent £50,000 trying to stop release of review into disabled man’s death
   Previous government spent almost £1m trying to prevent release of documents in 56 legal cases

   More than £50,000 of taxpayers’ money was spent on lawyers to try to prevent the release of a safeguarding review ordered after a disabled man starved to death in his own home.

   The costs were part of a bill of nearly £1m spent under the last government to prevent the release of various documents under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act.

   It included spending by the Home Office of £30,000 to block a request by the Guardian for the total cost to the public of protecting the royal family.

   The figures were revealed after requests by the Democracy for Sale newsletter, which sought details of spending under the last government in attempts to prevent the release of information.

   Some of the spending that was uncovered related to an attempt by a campaigner at the Child Poverty Action Group charity to obtain the results of a review by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) into its safeguarding procedures.

   The existence of the review was revealed in reports about the death of Errol Graham, who starved to death in June 2018 after the DWP wrongly stopped his out-of-work disability benefits, leaving him without any income.

   The information commissioner ordered the department in 2022 to release the results of the review, which the DWP had been trying to keep secret for two years.

   Graham, 57, weighed just four and a half stone when his body was found by bailiffs who were trying to evict him, eight months after his benefits were stopped.

   Despite spending £35,600 on solicitors and £15,400 on a barrister, the DWP’s appeal was dismissed and the information was disclosed to Owen Stevens, a universal credit adviser at the Child Poverty Action Group.

   A DWP spokesperson said the department complied with FoI guidance, but added: “Occasionally we exercise our right to challenge decisions from the Information Commissioner’s Office, which can incur legal costs.

   “These are justified to ensure we are protecting and handling information lawfully in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act.”

   Ministerial departments in the last government spent £937,000 fighting transparency in 56 legal cases that were listed in 2023.

   Many of the attempts at secrecy failed, with judges ruling that the public interest was best served by the release of official documents.

   In other cases, attempts at increasing transparency were thwarted. Judges on a freedom of information tribunal ruled this year that the cost of protecting members of the royal family could not be revealed to the public.

   Their decision, made after hearing detailed evidence behind closed doors and a legal challenge by the Home Office, means the bill for protecting the royal family – thought to run into tens of millions a year – will remain an official secret.

   The DWP and the Ministry of Defence meanwhile spent six figure sums of taxpayers’ money to fight transparency, spending £120,000 and £105,000, respectively.

   However, the real government spend is likely to be substantially higher than the £937,000 because many departments refused to answer the request or claimed not to hold any information.

   Information was obtained on 58 of the 118 cases on the government’s case register for 2023.”

3. While I do detest the tories. And I do… I’m not sure from the article whether these were ministerial actions to prevent the release of information as opposed to internal civil service decisions.

   Everything I’ve seen over the years tells me that DWP employees either break and move on quickly or become extremely jaded towards benefits applications.

   I’m not sure how much of this would have been different under any other government.

   Because the last 50 years *at least* have been painting all benefits claimants as workshy at best if not outright thieves and fraudsters.

   Admittedly, it does always get markedly worse under tory administrations.

   Oh. And an extra special Fuck You to IDS. He has likely caused more damage to the wellbeing of vulnerable people than any other UK politician in living memory.

4. £150,000,000 to protect the Royal Family no wonder they tried to hide it, shame they can’t protect Nonce Andrew from befriending Chinese spies. But I’m sure all the tourists they have round Buckhouse pays for it.

5. Tories always gonna Tory. Grim.

6. Typical of the Tories. Totally unwilling to give financial help to those who need it, but a blank cheque for trying to cover things up.

7. We can’t know how much the royals spend of your money because then we would see that we all paid the fucking 15 million plus to keep Andrews hobbies the worst kept fucking secret.

   Until we see clear evidence to the contrary remember the Queen gave her son 15 million plus because he’s innocent. Shame on her and the rest of the royals for allowing it and him.

8. There’s 12,000+ people that have died in similar circumstances. The DWP is a murder machine. The UNHRC did an investigation which was muted in the UK.

9. Tory government spends what’s needed to cover up their inadequacies..It’s cheaper than sorting the problem. Fire all those that colluded with government policy.

10. Maybe a review into how much the DWP are spending to cover up stories is in order

11. They spent £50k trying to hide a report into the guy starting to death. Let’s think about that for a moment, they let him starve to death, and then spent £50k covering it up

    At £200/month, £50k could’ve kept him fed for 20 years, which would’ve taken him to 77 years old

    Putting the £50k in the bank with a 3.5% interest rate and giving him just the interest, could’ve given him £150/mo for groceries pretty much forever and the government would’ve still gotten its £50k back at the end of the

12. If you accidentally killed someone and tried to cover it up, what would happen to you? How is this case any different?

13. I have long considered the DWP a terrorist organisation

14. If concerned folk want to know what’s happening with respect to the interaction between welfare claimants and the DWP and the role of politicians in all that, check out the Disability News Service to find stories the media won’t tell you

    [Disability News Service](https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/)

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