As of March 2018, DWP continued to ignore how a health disability impacts on everyday life and have done nothing whatsoever to prevent harm – quite the opposite DWP have ‘blood on their hands’ as per many deaths attributed to their mistreatment of people making sick or terminally ill lives intolerable as detailed below.
Between Dec 2011 and Feb 2014, 90 people a month died after the DWP told them they were fit for work.
In total, when this was formally reviewed over years 35,000 died, who were cheated of monies and harassed.
Between Mar 2014 and Feb 2017, 10 people a day died after the DWP put them in the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) Work Related Activity Group (WRAG) – fit for work – hey, you should be working “Scroungers”, what were they thinking dying.
Despite parliament debate after debate, politically MPs are failing to hold DWP to account, despite written and statistical evidence, DWP even found guilty of breaching legislation/ their own rules in court etc – this summary document is the tip of the iceberg to what goes on regarding DWP.
There is no limit to the extent of how disgraceful DWP behaviour is – ignoring the fact of leaving people penniless, making many destitute. Under FOI they had to admitted to using fake claimants and made up stories to cover up and make sanctions seem like a good thing (propaganda):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33974674
FOI has proven – Jobcentre Plus staff use of false names on their ID badges to protect their identities.
Protection of identity from what – the harm and abuse, bullying and mental cruelty, starvation DWP staff inflict on people – how can this be; DWP sanction leaflet says claimants just love to be sanctioned – it’s so great as per their propaganda !
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13681253
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Given benefit sanctions ruin lives. No wonder DWP have to turn to fiction (propaganda). Under freedom of information, DWP was forced to admit to inventing quotes from fake ‘benefits claimants’ for sanctions leaflet promoting how great being sanctioned is, fooling no one but themselves as reported:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/19/benefit-sanctions-ruin-lives-dwp-fiction
“something is “disgraceful and sinister” about trying to trick people into believing in the benevolent chastisement of the state.”
“In contrast to the deprivation and destitution that can result from sanctioning, the fictional Zac and Sarah, with their beatific expressions beaming out from leaflets, are eerily chipper.”
“Back in the real world, sanctioned benefits claimants are being forced into homelessness and resorting to food banks. There have been suicides. Last week, a famished woman whose benefits were stopped was prosecuted and fined more than £300 for stealing a 75p pack of Mars Bars.”
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Unbelievably MPs are prevented from helping claimants, as DWP have become are law unto themselves and made a political system ‘not fit for purpose’ – on how pathetic this is:
“MPs were being blocked by Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) officials from pursuing individual universal credit casework issues on data protection grounds.”
“Officials had refused to discuss specific cases with MPs unless the claimant concerned had given “explicit consent” for them to do so by issuing detailed instructions via their online universal credit account. ”
“After complaints from MPs, who called the rule a “major barrier to justice”, it is expected the DWP will issue new guidance on Thursday clarifying that elected representatives can access universal credit information on behalf of claimants.”
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DWP cruel, arbitrary and ridiculous reasons to why people are sanctioned by DWP even MPs reporting this (apart from masses of DWP misdemeanours on Hansard)
http://dwpunspun.org.uk/sanctions
DWP monitor claimants online accounts – It’s Christmas Day and you don’t fill in your job search evidence form to show that you’ve looked for all the new jobs that are advertised on Christmas Day. You are sanctioned. Merry Christmas.
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HEALTH AND WELLBEING ‘PARTNERSHIPS’ – exactly how is DWP treatment of people humane and allowed in a suppose to be civilised country, people are not even allowed to be ill or die in peace !
Man who was too ill to attend fit-for-work interview but terrified of losing benefits dies. CHARLIE McGARVEY’S seriously ill brother Terry, 48, attended his Atos assessment and during this had to be taken to hospital where he died the following day.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/man-who-ill-attend-fit-for-work-3177803
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Wigan Jobcentres tricking people out of benefits to cut costs, says whistle-blower and proven !
Soaring number of sanctions against unemployed amid claims that DWP staff are being told to trip people up with paperwork April 2011 – evidence confirmed with the statistics behind jobseekers sanctions
Sanctions against benefits claimants soar 860k claimants sanctioned 2013 compared to 500k labour 2010
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/06/sanctions-benefits-claimants
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DWP MALFEASANCE CAUSING DEATHS ( Jobcentre staff on public record have been found to be liars and cheats, note ATOS does assessment but DWP ‘amateur’ clerks make decisions), in one year – 10,600 sick and terminally ill that die within 6 weeks of being told they were ‘FIT FOR WORK’ and left penniless by DWP !
As to deaths: Half-blind woman crippled with back pain, a former nurse killed herself after benefits were stopped – following DWP ‘medical’ assessment that lasted TWO minutes
- Jacqueline Harris, 53, was told she was fit to return to work
- Widow was partially sighted and only able to walk with the aid of sticks
- Christine Norman claims benefits ruling drove her sister to kill herself
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Declared ‘fit to work’… dead nine days later: Double lung and heart transplant patient passed away a week after her benefits were stopped
- Linda Wootton, 49, was on 10 prescription medications a day
- The former council worker suffered from regular blackouts
- But healthcare assessor Atos ruled that she was ‘fit to work’
- She was told her benefits were being stopped as she lay dying in hospital
- Husband Peter now wants to expose the ordeal his wife went through
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Heart transplant waiting list war hero who is always ’15 seconds from death’ has benefits stopped because he is not disabled enough
- Alex Smith suffered heart failure but has been told he is fit to work
- He claims he becomes seriously exhausted by even the smallest efforts
- If his life-saving device breaks he has just 15 seconds to live
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Another of many harassment cases – Railway engineer diagnosed with COPD, hooked up to oxygen tank 16 hrs a day, originally diagnosed in 1988 but managed to work until 2005, he is STOPPING MEDICAL TREATMENT WITH THE INTENTION OF DYING as he has HAD ENOUGH OF JOBCENTRE MAKING HIM JUMP THROUGH HOOPS.
http://www.deadlinenews.co.uk/2012/07/19/fife-man-in-death-protest-over-benefits/
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An army veteran and his wife punished for having a learning disability, killed themselves because they could not face another winter living off charity food bank handouts. Nov 2011
In a video filmed at a soup kitchen a yr before their deaths – Mr Mullins told how his wife’s lack of numeracy and literacy skills DWP had purposefully put them in a benefits limbo:
“The job centre decided Helen couldn’t sign on as she was incapable of employment as she has no literacy and numeracy skills. “
“However, the incapacity people wouldn’t recognise her disabilities which led to month after month of seeing specialists. We’re in a catch 22 situation,“ he said.
Further reports, highlight lack of social care and breach of human rights , the Mullins were even denied ‘right to family life’ – social services are understood to have taken her 12-year-old daughter away due to being unable to look after her due to having no monies as a result of the cruelty of DWP.
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Severely disabled man needing 24hr care, deaf and blind and fed through tube – declared ‘fit for work
http://blacktrianglecampaign.org/2012/05/23/incidents-like-this-shame-us-all/
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Man with life-threatening blood clots and open leg ulcers loses benefits after job centre labels him fit for work. Caution – graphic photographs
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Disabled former NHS nurse says she has slept in car for more than a year and eaten out of bins to survive because her benefits were slashed
- Ann Cumberland-Quinn still sleeping in her car six months after telling her story
- The 55-year-old, residing in Ely, Cambridgeshire, can barely walk due to illness
- Ms Cumberland-Quinn who suffers from a condition called paresthesia
- Doctor notes she can only walk ‘using two crutches with great difficulty’
- Yet Department for Work and Pensions said she’s not elligble for PIP
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5055367/Disabled-NHS-nurse-living-car-six-months.html
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On how EVIL AND DUPLICITOUS amateur MPs and DWP staff are regarding mistreating people – freedom of Information (FOI) revealed around 73 people a week die miserable deaths, harassed and deprived of all monies.
Does anyone think DWP took notice of GPs – official annual statistics 2012, DWP ‘decisions’ and DWP health assessors left 10,600 people penniless, who died within 6 weeks of being told they were ‘fit for work’ and refused sick and disability ‘benefit’ (ESA) ! Living claimants are refused unemployment monies (JSA) as DWP claim they are not ‘fit for work’ as they have limitations to where or what work they can actually do, so are left in no-man’s land. DWP subsequently refused to provide this information and Iain Duncan Smith often caught lying on record many times, saying statistics were not on record.
Also regularly acknowledged in court, DWP are in breach of their own corrupt rules – in particular sanctioning people. DWP have been found guilty in court of cheating 240,000 people of monies, some month later despite the ruling the court ruling of illegality of this, the number rose to 500,000 people. MPs and IDS tried resort to rushing through retro-legislation so they would not have to pay this, but, again found to be illegal leaving people with no monies for months to years on end.
As pointed out, already, Universal Credit is no different, behind it – it is the same assessment, same clerks and same tricks and cheat claimants out of monies and do not provide help to them under any circumstances.
Unemployment monies is a maximum of £71 pw (under 25 yrs £55 pw) to pay for all food, utility bills water, electric gas, tel, transport, clothing etc – a totally evil system. DWP harassment and sanction are killing people for so little !
Lesson’s are NOT learnt, the same flannel gets spouted by DWP’s nameless spokespersons’ and pathetic MPs (who have allowed this to happen in the first place), brainlessly trotting out party lines, say anything that’s expedient, use the same PR spin or saying oh dear it’s the other political parties fault !
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Apart from inhumanity of sanctioning, to how pathetic and unsafe this is – sanctioned, left with no monies,
” David Clapton died because of diabetic lack of insulin….. “
“His electricity had been cut off (meaning that the fridge where he kept his insulin was no longer working). There was very little left to eat in the flat – six tea bags, an out-of-date tin of sardines and a can of tomato soup. His pay-as-you-go mobile phone had just 5p credit left on it and he had only £3.44 in his bank account. The autopsy notes reveal that his stomach was empty. “
“D Clapton, had worked for 29 years, was anxious to stress that he should not be seen as “scrounger” : he was actively searching for work, and found dead next to a pile of CVs he had just printed out found a few metres from his body. “
“He spent five years in the army, two of them serving in Belfast, 16 years working for BT and another eight at other companies before he stopped working to care for their mother who had developed dementia. When she died three years ago, he began to look for a new job and was put on the government’s ‘ Work Programme’ twice
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/aug/03/victims-britains-harsh-welfare-sanctions
ie. ‘Work Programme’ : DWP forced the unemployed to work for FREE for commercial companies such as Poundland shelf stacking. The taxpayer picked up the bill for basic ‘unemployment’ monies, minimum wages is not paid and of course accompanied by DWPs arbitrary and unfair sanction – this scheme statistically proven did nothing to actually improve people’s employment prospects !
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As to the background and misconduct of DWP’s health providers ATOS, MAXIMUS etc…. in checking to this being true, it is easy to go direct to source regarding US court cases and where they get kicked out of their own countries nor can claim success etc……
“…. running “disability denial factories” and the Judge fined them $31.7 million. The company were ordered to re-investigate countless thousands of other refused claims, something the company has still failed to complete 7 years later.
http://whywaitforever.com/dwpatosveteranssummary.html
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DWP IGNORE HEALTH PROBLEMS AND ACTUALLY PURPOSEFULLY MAKE PEOPLE DESTITUTE CAUGHT OUT ON FOI
DWP (department of works and pensions) and government ministers, are intentionally leaving people with any sort of health problem, even terminally ill , without monies and in dire poverty
DWP have LIED and obfuscate, purposefully giving conflicting information, under freedom of information (FOI):
FOI 2012: “Having reviewed your request I can confirm that the content of the original response is upheld. We do not hold the requested statistics as
“A PERSON CANNOT BE IN A POSITION WHERE THEY ARE INELIGIBLE FOR EMPLOYMENT AND SUPPORT ALLOWANCE (ESA) AND NOT FIT ENOUGH TO MEET THE CONDITIONS REQUIRED FOR CLAIMING JOBSEEKER’S ALLOWANCE (JSA). “
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/claimants_not_eligible_for_esa_o#comment-36713
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FOI 2013 contradiction – Claimants not eligible JSA (unemployment) or for ESA (incapacity/disability) were left penniless:
“THERE IS NO BENEFIT FOR PEOPLE WHO FALL BETWEEN ESA AND JSA CONDITIONS. If a person is found not to have limited capability for work for ESA purposes, they will qualify for JSA unless they put restrictions on their availability for work which are unreasonable in the light of their physical or mental condition.”
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/available_benefits#incoming-369049
Without a doubt DWP lied and have been refusing to monitor statistics and report on this – there is clear evidence in parliament transcripts. FOI evidence and cases of deaths picked up in the media (tip of the iceberg) – this case , which says it all to DWP lies, punishing something as simple as a learning disability and people have to die for this – even the daily mail has had to admit DWP wrong doings :
Suicides, denied ESA and JSA and left in poverty across 2 winters (Nov 2011):
Dying to stay warm? The state must take responsibility
“The story of Mark and Helen Mullins is one that should never be told, and it should never be told because it shouldn’t have occurred in the first place”.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2059895/Dying-stay-warm-The-state-responsibility.html
NOTE. terminal cancers, chronic health conditions apparently are disqualifying restrictions, so DWP can cheat of all monies regarding unemployment JSA and do not qualify for ESA ….. !
Legislation and legal right are ignored or cherry picked by DWP to what’s convenient to them – the inhumane farce of refusing £71 pw “the minimum on which the law says to live”, government’s labour and conservatives parties are a sick joke of allowing this mistreatment, harassment and lies
The individual is denied paid professional legal representation, the pretence of fair tribunal system is a joke – where individuals have to take on a government departments, and a system that keeps providing money to proper up a disgraceful cruel government department we are suppose to obtain medical evidence and put personal details in the public domain etc…. whilst the DWP are handed £22m for basically denying people monies. Again, governments unfairly disadvantaging very vulnerable people, because to many sick people are actually winning cases.
https://benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/3693-dwp-presenting-officers-at-half-of-all-pip-tribunals
There is no safeguard that people will be placed on one benefit or another and have a minimum income on which to survive, the tribunal system takes no account of this, it either rules benefit is payable under ESA or not, JSA benefit is payable or not….. and MPs know full well people are left without monies in no-mans land. They are denied unemployment monies as they have restrictions/ limitation on what they can work or what they can do (NOR is this assessed, mobility is assessed on press a button, not what jobs they can do), then they are not classed as sick or properly disabled on the basis of something as stupid that they can press a button, put a hand above their head etc…. and as per the case below can make a cup of tea (it is not assessed they would not be able to do this on a professional level or for how long etc…. it is so pathetic)
Every week people are reported to be dying miserable deaths, as to how people are treat in general….. the most recent farce:
As above, DWP policy is clear, deny monies by any excuse possible, they even sub-contract to agencies that are internationally notorious for cheating people of monies and still do not put it right several years later !
There is no equality before the law, there are rights – yes I know I have rights, but I have no means of enforcing them, and I have documented years of the farce of this trying to appeal for common sense to DWP and tribunal system while left completely destitute. The government is by stealth, basically penalises family/ relatives and friends that have to pick up the expenses because of parliaments and an evil government department that has no qualms at inflicting cruelty and denying human rights.
DWP’s latest stunt on hypocrisy of legal rights, is to pay a charity a further £39 m to tell people of their rights (but again, this does not include a means of enforcing them or guarantee they will be received); the government have knowingly continued to denying legal rights and have no intention of providing them – this is just throwing money at tiered unaccountable bureaucracy.
So in summary: No rights by DWP have been considered regarding International Economic or Social ratified agreements have been taken into account in my case or even under UK law.
We are suppose to have legal rights – disability, equality, human rights etc – but in reality trying to just going about daily life, nothing is done to ensure that these are actually received or enforced in any respect concerning public services ie. welfare, healthcare, education or working life etc; all of which are secondary to not having enough monies to just to exist from day to day. No one is held to account for the harm DWP inflicts, when it leaves people penniless, for months to years at a time and even when people die, nothing constructive is done.
Definition of poverty is to be left with no monies to pay for food, clothing, shelter which includes no monies to pay for such basic utilities as water and energy…. the government has failed to ensure that vulnerable people are adequately protected – the aim of the Department of Works and Pensions (DWP) is not to provide help but to use the excuse for their mistreatment is “saving taxpayer” monies.
For the many individuals, who are left in dire poverty, it is a continual losing battle to obtain basic necessities of life, and who is held accountable – no body.