Results from a Commons Work and Pensions Committee survey reveal serious concerns about safeguarding shared by most DWP staff who took part, including hundreds who work in job centres.
They show that:
- 67% of DWP staff who had direct contact with claimants disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement: “I have enough time in my day to deal with safeguarding concerns carefully, correctly and promptly.”
- More than two-fifths (42%) of staff with direct contact with claimants did not believe they received adequate safeguarding training.
- 44% said the safeguarding guidance for frontline staff was not clear, comprehensive and easy to access, while more than a third (36%) did not feel confident about how to handle a safeguarding concern.
- 48 % disagreed or strongly disagreed that, in their experience, safeguarding procedures were followed properly by all staff in every instance.
- Just one in four (25%) of those with direct contact with claimants believed there was enough support from management and DWP’s “advanced customer support senior leaders” to ensure effective safeguarding.
The survey was completed by more than 1,700 DWP staff, of whom nearly 1,400 have direct contact with claimants.
It was carried out as part of an inquiry launched by the Committee last July into whether the DWP has a duty to safeguard “vulnerable people”, and if it does not, whether it should.
Only last month, the DWP admitted missing multiple opportunities to record the “vulnerability” of a disabled woman whose death had been linked by a coroner to failings at the heart of its universal credit working-age benefits system.
The survey results were published on the parliamentary website after the Committee’s chair, Labour’s Sir Stephen Timms, wrote to Ministers to tell them the inquiry had been abandoned because the Committee had not had time to finalise its findings after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called a general election and parliament was dissolved.
Mr Timms wrote: “We hope that the evidence we have gathered will be of interest to our successor Committee, the next Government and to the individuals and organisations outside of Parliament and Government who are interested in the matters covered by this inquiry.”
On 22 May, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) launched a formal investigation of the treatment of Disabled and chronically ill people by the DWP, including benefits decisions subsequently linked to the deaths of claimants, is to be formally investigated.
The EHRC said that the investigation had been launched “due to suspicions that successive Secretaries of State may have broken equality law in their roles as Minister responsible for the DWP.
There is also mounting concern that the EHRC investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) will only focus on events from January 2021 onwards.
This may mean that the investigation will not consider evidence relating to some of the most high-profile and disturbing deaths linked to DWP’s failures, such as those of Philippa Day (September 2019), Jodey Whiting (February 2017), Michael O’Sullivan (September 2013), Roy Curtis (November 2018) and Errol Graham (spring 2018).
The EHRC is also not seeking evidence from individual Disabled people or relatives of those who died through failings of the DWP.
Instead, Disabled people who claim benefits and relatives of claimants who have died will be expected to contact a “relevant organisation or representative such as an MP to provide their story”.
Ken Butler, DR UK’s Welfare Rights and Policy Officer, said:
“The survey results showing that two-thirds of frontline DWP staff don’t have enough time in their day to deal with safeguarding concerns are truly shocking.
“Especially in the context of planned work capability assessment reforms placing the responsibility for work conditionality requirements and sanctions solely in the hands of work coaches.
“This could only endanger the health, safety and wellbeing of disabled claimants.
“Again, the EHRC investigation is welcome, but its limitations are not.
“The investigation should not be limited to the period from 2021.
“In addition, not seeking evidence from relatives and friends of disabled claimants who have died through DWP failings means that uniquely informed testimony and evidence will be missed.”
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