DWP peer reviews

Hi all

I know that there have been a few people looking into the DWP peer review process that they carry out following serious incidents surrounding claimants (not least John Pring at DNS: http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/information-watchdog-to-probe-dwps-secret-reviews-on-benefit-deaths/ ). 

This was an issue that was raised very effectively by the DWP Work and Pensions Select Committee in their recent review of sanctions policy following the Oakley Review. 

I’ve recently flicked back through the Ms DE report published by the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland which includes a section where a DWP SEO peer reviewer talks the commission’s researcher through Ms DE’s peer review.  I thought I would re-post it here for interest (see p.23).

MWC make the following comment: “The peer review in this case is a solely paper-based internal
process. It reviews all the relevant DWP documentation. Mr A had been asked to carry out the peer
review by a senior executive within the DWP in September 2012. Mr A carried out the peer review on a
single-handed basis, without any contribution from medical staff. As such, there was no effective peer
review carried out.”

Letter in the guardian yesterday form prominent public health experts: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/03/us-and-british-health-specialists-support-the-nhs (it’s the second letter on the page). 

“austerity policies can be linked to a reversal in the long-term downward trend in suicides, which have increased most where welfare cuts have been most severe.”

And this from the Guardian’s coverage of the daily politics welfare debate:
The Green’s Jonathan Bartley infuriated the work and pensions secretary with a suggestion that according to press reports 60 suicides can be linked to the Government’s welfare reforms. In perhaps his most impassioned moment of the debate, IDS flatly denied the claim and swiftly put Bartley in his place. The Green didn’t apologise but certainly appeared to realise the enormity of his allegation and soon quietened down. Here is IDS’s moment of fury in full:

“That’s just scurrilous. You make an allegation and you can not stand that up and I simply say to you be very careful. You say you’re a Christian, be very careful what you say about people’s motivations. I have to tell you now, the department has looked at this and I’m not prepared to accept the welfare changes that have improved the quality of lives for all sorts of people… and what I’m telling you now is what we absolutely know is you can not make allegations about individual cases, in tragic cases where obviously things go badly wrong and suddenly say this is directly as a result of Government policy. I totally reject that. What a scurrilous point to make. I think what you said is cheap.”

But surely if the man just BELIEVED it was true, that should be enough for the Secretary of State? What’s this sudden keenness on having to prove what you say?????

This isn’t an issue that appears to have been flagged up in reports to prevent future deaths: https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/related-offices-and-bodies/office-chief-coroner/pfd-reports/

I suppose the point is that it’s very hard to tell without any sort of information on the changes recommended following the DWP peer reviews.  However, the Ms DE report would seem to suggest that DWP peer reviews are of pretty poor quality.

This whole issue emphasises the relevance of the Low Commission’s (http://www.lowcommission.org.uk/dyn/1425469623929/Low-Commission-Report-Text-Proof-207050-.pdf) comments on the importance of high quality advice services (p.43) with adequate funding from wellbeing and mental health focused organisations (ch.4).

I wonder if the signatories to the Guardian letter are working to ensure that their organisations consider high quality advice provision in the services their commissioning?

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/may/13/mental-health-cuts-driving-people-edge-mark-winstanley

Thought this may be of interest.  Some extracts of interest to welfs:

Mark Winstanley, head of the Rethink Mental Illness charity, urges the Conservative government to act on its funding promises and prioritise mental health

“showing that investing in things like early intervention does save money” in the longer term.
Even after three decades in the sector he sounds genuinely exasperated that life expectancy for people with some serious mental illnesses can be as much as 20 years lower than the average.

Winstanley started out at Rethink (then called The National Schizophrenia Fellowship) as a welfare rights officer in the mid-1980s and has held an assortment of roles over the years including director of corporate affairs and HR director, which he says has given him a deep appreciation of the mental health issues ranging from crisis care to stigma.

It may have something to do with him having started out as a community-based welfare that leads to him singling out the controversial work capability assessment (WCA) for particular opprobrium. The assessments have seen many people with mental health conditions endure great stress with thousands wrongly found fit for work, he says.

“It’s self-evident that in difficult times [with] the pressures that people are facing, their mental health will deteriorate so we are in a position where there is greater need and less resource. It does push people to the edge. We looked at research from 1,000 GPs where they said that 21% of their patients had suicidal ideation because of the stress of the WCA. So people are being driven to the edge.”

For interest here is the research referred to in the profile in the last post:

http://www.rethink.org/media-centre/2012/09/new-gp-survey-shows-government-welfare-test-is-pushing-vulnerable-people-to-the-brink

I thought I would also attach a useful report on advice in a mental health setting

http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/one-in-five-benefit-related-deaths-involved-sanctions-admits-dwp/

Interesting story.  Would be good to know a little more about the figures.  For example, benefit termination following a poor quality WCA or failure to attend a WCA seems to me to be a riskier situation for vulnerable claimants than being sanctioned.

http://natalieleal.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/dwp-secret-reviews-into-benefit-deaths.html

contains the following quotes from a DWP FOI response:

“At the time of death, eight people were claiming Job Seekers Allowance, 22 were claiming Employment and Support Allowance, one was claiming Pension Credit and five were not claiming benefit.

“In the remaining cases, from the information held in the Peer Reviews it is not clear which benefit was being claimed at the time of death.”

“The 49 peer reviews to which you refer were conducted in cases where the person had died, but not all as a result of suicide or subject to a sanction.”

edit: the same article also includes this link - https://fullfact.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/reply-5013.pdf

Owen Stevens - 02 June 2015 01:58 PM

“In the remaining cases, from the information held in the Peer Reviews it is not clear which benefit was being claimed at the time of death.”

 

Thorough reviews then