Saturday, 4 October 2025

The Department for Work and Pensions and the politics of welfare reform


The welfare state was never meant to be like this.

When Britain was rebuilding after the Second World War, the government made a promise: no one would be left behind. The Beveridge Report of 1942 identified five great evils — Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor, and Idleness and designed a safety net “from cradle to grave.” This was not charity. It was a right of citizenship. Workers would pay in when they could, and society would stand by them when illness, disability, or unemployment struck.

It was about solidarity, not suspicion. Cleaners, carers, teachers, factory workers, bus drivers, the people who kept Britain running were not on high wages, but they worked their whole lives. Welfare was their guarantee of dignity when times turned hard.

Fast forward to today, and that promise has been twisted into something rotten. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the very institution meant to uphold the welfare state, has become a machine of suspicion and punishment. Instead of support, it delivers stress. Instead of protection, it delivers humiliation.

And I know this because I live it too.

My Experience: Missed Calls, Hostile Letters, and No Accountability

On 25 September, I was due to have a phone appointment with the DWP. The call never came. There was no missed call, no voicemail, nothing in my records. But a few days later, a letter arrived. Its opening line: “You need to tell us why you did not attend.” The closing threat: “If you do not attend your appointments… your payment could be stopped.”

That letter was not written to help me. It was written to blame me.

I rebooked for another appointment at 10:30. Again, no call came. Again, no missed call. Again, I was left chasing. Meanwhile, the letters keep coming cold, passive-aggressive, treating me not as a human needing support but as a suspect who needs to prove themselves.

When I once complained about a member of staff who was openly rude, a manager brushed it off: “he wasn’t.” No accountability. No change. Where do you go from there?

And when I tried to do something positive, to move forward and build a business, I discovered another barrier: DWP’s own “Access to Work” scheme. On paper, it helps disabled people start or stay in employment. In reality, for business, it can take up to 30 weeks for support to arrive. But the first 30 weeks of a new business are the most critical. A delay that long isn’t support; it’s sabotage.

That is my reality. And I am not alone.

The cruelty of the system is not just inefficiency. It is baked into its culture. And sometimes, it kills.

  • J. Whiting, a 42-year-old disabled mother, had her benefits wrongly stopped in 2017. Just days later, she died by suicide. In 2025, a second inquest confirmed that the DWP’s decision had triggered her death (The Guardian, 2 June 2025).
  • M. O’Sullivan, aged 60, was declared “fit for work” despite serious mental health issues. He took his own life. The coroner directly blamed the Work Capability Assessment for causing “intense anxiety” that led to his death (The Guardian, 7 Feb 2020).
  • K. Featherstone, a young disabled man, had his PIP cut. His health deteriorated into malnutrition, depression, and isolation. He took his own life. His mother later described the assessment process as “torture,” saying the DWP had ignored repeated warnings (Disability Rights UK, July 2021).
  • A disabled woman learned that her PIP appeal had failed. Just 48 hours later, she was dead by suicide. Her life ended with a letter (Disability News Service, 2019).
  • 1,860 people who applied for PIP between 2018 and 2022 died within six months of being denied support nearly 100 people a month. Many were terminally ill, but the system still decided they didn’t qualify (Marie Curie, 2022).

Behind every statistic is a human being. And behind every death is the same culture: a department more focused on policing than protecting.

A Culture of Suspicion and Punishment

What ties my story to J. Whiting’s, to M. O’Sullivan’s, to Ker Featherstone’s?

It is culture.

The DWP does not see claimants as citizens with rights. It sees us as cheats waiting to be exposed. That suspicion is written into every letter, every assessment, every interaction.

  • Phone appointments missed by DWP become accusations against the claimant.
  • Appeals drag on for years, leaving people in poverty and despair.
  • Customer service is often rude, dismissive, or outright cruel.
  • Assessors ask questions like, “Why haven’t you killed yourself yet?” and yes, that happened to claimants (The Independent, 2017).

Even in the rare cases when coroners or watchdogs find fault, the system protects itself. The National Audit Office confirmed at least 69 suicides had been linked to DWP benefit handling through its own internal reviews, but it warned the real figure was likely far higher, because many cases were under-recorded or destroyed (The Guardian, 7 Feb 2020).

This is not welfare. This is not safe. This is institutional abuse.

The Betrayal of the Post-War Promise

What makes it worse is remembering where all this began.

The welfare state was created to protect ordinary workers, the cleaners, the factory workers, the teachers, the nurses, the builders, people who gave their whole lives to their jobs but never earned enough to be secure when illness or redundancy came. It was designed as a collective promise: “We will look after you, because you looked after society.”

Now? That promise has been broken.

Instead of being a right of citizenship, welfare is treated as a favour. Instead of solidarity, it is suspicion. Instead of support, it is punishment. The DWP, the institution meant to protect, has become the institution that harms.

This is not just inefficiency. It is cruelty, normalised. And it must end.

What Needs to Change

Anger is not enough. We already know the system is broken — the question is: what must be done to fix it? The answer is not cutting disability benefits, not harsher sanctions, not more hoops to jump through. The answer is cultural and structural change.

Here are six urgent demands.

1. A Statutory Duty of Care

Right now, the DWP has no legal duty to protect the people it deals with. That means when vulnerable claimants are harmed, even when they die, the department is not held responsible.

This has to change. A recent report from Parliament’s Work and Pensions Committee recommended a statutory duty of care: a legal requirement that the DWP safeguard claimants, especially those who are disabled, ill, or at risk of harm (UK Parliament Report, 2025).

Why it matters: If doctors, teachers, and social workers can be held accountable for safeguarding failures, why not the DWP? It handles the lives of millions, often at their lowest point. Without a duty of care, claimants will continue to fall through the cracks, sometimes fatally.

2. End Hostile Communications

The language of DWP letters is one of suspicion and blame. “Tell us why you failed to attend.” “If you do not respond, your payments may be stopped.”

But many people never “failed” at all. Calls are missed by the DWP, letters arrive late, and vulnerable people are punished for administrative errors.

Why it matters: Tone is not cosmetic. Tone can save lives. A letter that blames can tip someone already struggling into despair. A letter that supports can give them enough hope to carry on.

The DWP must rewrite its communications in plain, compassionate language. For example:

  • Instead of “You did not attend your appointment,” write “We tried to contact you. Did something go wrong? Please let us know.”

It costs nothing to treat people with dignity.

3. Independent Oversight and Transparency

When claimants die, the DWP carries out internal process reviews (IPRs). But most of these reports never see the light of day. In fact, Disability Rights UK revealed that older reports have even been destroyed (DRUK, 2020).

This secrecy is deliberate. It shields the DWP from accountability.

Why it matters: Without transparency, lessons are never learned. Families are left without answers. And the public cannot see how many lives have been lost.

All IPRs, past and future, must be published in full. And oversight must be taken out of DWP’s hands and given to an independent watchdog with the power to investigate, sanction, and enforce change.

4. Appeals That Don’t Take Years

Many people who are denied benefits eventually win on appeal. But the appeal system is so slow that claimants often endure months or years of stress, debt, and poverty before justice arrives. Some do not live to see it.

Why it matters: A system that regularly overturns its own decisions is a system that knows it is making mistakes. Delayed justice is not justice; it is cruelty.

Appeals must be fast-tracked, with priority given to cases where health is deteriorating or livelihoods are at stake. Independent panels should be empowered to overturn unfair decisions swiftly.

5. Training in Human Dignity

Customer service is often rude, dismissive, or outright cruel. Claimants have been asked appalling questions like “Why haven’t you killed yourself yet?” (The Independent, 2017). Complaints are brushed aside.

Why it matters: DWP staff are not dealing with numbers. They are dealing with people at their most vulnerable people in crisis, with disabilities, and people facing poverty.

Every staff member must receive mandatory training in trauma-informed practice, disability rights, and respect. Staff who abuse claimants must face consequences. And claimants must have real avenues for complaints that are taken seriously, not dismissed out of hand.

6. Fix Access to Work

For disabled people who want to start or stay in work, the DWP offers “Access to Work”, a scheme meant to provide grants and adjustments. On paper, it sounds like support. In reality, for disabled entrepreneurs, it often takes 30 weeks for help to arrive.

Why it matters: The first 30 weeks of a business are the most critical. That is when support is needed most. Waiting half a year is not support, it is sabotage.

If the government is serious about disabled people working, Access to Work must be streamlined. Support should be delivered quickly, flexibly, and with recognition that disabled entrepreneurs and workers cannot wait half a year for basic assistance.

The Bottom Line

The welfare state was created after the Second World War as a promise: that no one would be abandoned in times of hardship. That promise has been broken.

Instead of care, the DWP delivers cruelty. Instead of dignity, it delivers suspicion. Instead of support, it delivers stress. And in too many cases, it delivers death.

Cutting disability benefits will not fix this. The system itself is rotten. It does not need tinkering  it needs transformation.

We cannot accept passive-aggressive letters that shame people into despair. We cannot accept years-long appeals that leave people destitute. We cannot accept Access to Work delays that crush disabled entrepreneurs before they begin. We cannot accept a department that operates without a duty of care while people die under its watch.

This is not just about money. It is about humanity. And right now, Britain’s safety net has become a trap.

To MPs, to ministers, to the Ombudsman, to anyone in power: you cannot say you did not know. The evidence is here. The lives lost are here. My story is here.

The DWP does not need more excuses. It needs reform. It needs accountability. And above all, it needs to remember why the welfare state was created in the first place: to protect people when life is hardest.

Until then, every missed call, every hostile letter, every delayed appeal, every unnecessary death is on your hands.

 

For more stories visit my substack- https://chronicledtruths.substack.com