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

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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.

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.

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.

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.

Ken Butler DR UK’s Welfare Rights and Policy Adviser said:

“Errol Graham died of starvation, eight months after his employment support allowance (ESA) was withdrawn. He was suffering severe mental health problems and weighed four-and-a-half stone (30kg) when he died.

“His body was found by bailiffs who were sent to evict him because he had not paid his rent for seven months. He had no heating or hot water and at the time of his death, and no income for food and utilities.

"Although the DWP knew Mr Graham was highly vulnerable, it failed to take reasonable steps to obtain evidence that his health had improved before removing his only source of income due to him missing a work capability appointment.

“Mr. Graham’s tragic death is a scandal.

“That the DWP spent more than £50,000 of taxpayers’ money on lawyers to try to prevent the release of a safeguarding review ordered by the Information Commissioner after his death is another.

“John Pring of the Disability News Service (DNS) has shown how the DWP spent more than a decade covering up evidence that links its actions with hundreds, and probably thousands, of deaths of disabled social security claimants.

“All DWP reviews of benefit related deaths should be automatically published so that the Department’s actions and safeguarding procedures can be publicly scrutinised and improved.

"A public inquiry is also essential to understand what has gone so wrong in with the DWP that has led to so many unnecessary benefit-related deaths.

"In addition, the DWP still maintains it has no statutory duty of care towards claimants.

"This statutory duty must be put in place so that the safeguarding of vulnerable Disabled people is foremost in the DWP’s priorities”.

Source and for further information see DWP spent £50,000 trying to stop release of review into disabled man’s death available from theguardian.com.

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