DWP failures and the real life costs

BobbyMac

Woman wrongly stripped of her pension had £5 left when she jumped to her death

Absolutely horrific

BobbyMac

Sheila Holt: Woman ordered to find work while lying in coma dies aged 48

Another crack in the pavement

tapzilla2k

When you dig beneath the IDS scrounger spinning, you soon discover absolutely appalling behaviour by the DWP towards the most vulnerable members of society. The DWP representative at my appeal for PIP was aggressive and tried to accuse me of fraud as a means to intimidate me. Don't think that went down very well with the tribunal panel.

richp007

You could easily fill this thread up with stories like these. They're everywhere, but perhaps because of all that's been going on with Brexit they've been buried to a degree - along with many other things.

tapzilla2k

The stories have been buried for a while now. They've yet to gain the sort of traction that would cause a scandal. If Corbyn ever wins power, I suspect a Labour Government would probably lift the lid on it. We need to change how benefits are assessed and administered or go with the Universal Basic Income model to remove the cost of means tested benefits entirely, though you'd probably need to keep PIP or a similar disability benefit assessed on the medical evidence. Basically the DWP is as useless as the Home Office is with immigration. Both need to be stripped of their respective responsibilities.

Pacifico

Considering that the government is incapable of giving away free money without screwing it up its amazing that there are people in this world that want the government to do even more like run a railroad or run a electricity company.

The politicians aint gonna change.

Trollslayer

Not once they are in power and have 'reformed' everything. Which won't have changed.

Cliff

^^Lifting the lid and finding out what is broken, means Labour have to fix it. That is the difficult bit and far better to not lift that lid... or am I being too cynical.

Trollslayer

Sadly no.

richp007

Most of the talk on this is in the Tory thread, but I'll put this here now so the usual suspects don't throw a fit about thread derailment.

Amber Rudd FINALLY responds to death of six-stone Liverpool man Stephen Smith

"Mr Smith died last month following a gruelling battle with the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) - who repeatedly denied him benefits despite numerous doctors warning of his dramatically failing health.

In the end, 64-year-old Mr Smith - who weighed just six stone at the time - had to get a pass out of hospital to allow him to fight the DWP at a tribunal and finally win back the benefits he had been denied.

After his story was made public, the DWP also agreed to pay him back around £4,000 in backpay that he should never had been denied.

Sadly, this money arrived too late for Mr Smith - and was instead used to pay for his funeral."

It's an absolutely appalling case, and whilst I accept it's one of extreme severity, it's unfortunately not the only one of it's kind.

What's also sad is that people in here denied Rudd should be held accountable for DWP failings. The department she ultimately presides over. To think such a thing is frankly disgusting. Who do you hold to account?

And now she's taken personal interest in the case -

- She concludes by saying that Mr Smith's case has "her 'personal attention' and that 'if there is a need to take further action, it will be taken."