A good day to bury bad news …?

Well, well lookie here … on the very same day that the DWP finally release the mortality statistics in respect of ESA, IB and SDA  ;

Iain Duncan Smith’s top special adviser has been awarded a peerage — on the same day that the DWP finally admitted that thousands of people have died shortly after being declared ‘fit for work’.

Philippa Stroud has been at IDS’ side for years and shares the blame for many of the Tories’ social policies. The department had fought for months to prevent release of the damning stats — at one point telling parliament that they didn’t exist:

“between December 2011 and February 2014, 2,380 people died after their Work Capability Assessment told them they should start looking for work.”

The publication of this information on the same day of the biggest on-diary political event of the summer — the dissolution peers list — is, of course, no coincidence.

This is surely the first time a department has buried bad news under an announcement including a peerage for one of their own SpAds.

Not a word from the bald one yet … bearing in mind that the statistics were posted on the Gov.UK website at 9.30am this morning.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics?keywords=&topics%5B%5D=welfare&departments%5B%5D=department-for-work-pensions&from_date=26%2F08%2F15&to_date=

Other people however have had plenty to say:-

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jeremy-corbyn-says-iain-duncan-6332712

Even the Torygraph and BBC (normally staunch supporters of tory policies) reported on it;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11828097/Thousands-of-benefit-claimants-died-after-being-declared-fit-for-work.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34074557

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/27/death-britains-benefits-system-fit-for-work-safety-net

2300 people died after being found FIT FOR WORK.

Think about that for a moment.

as Mike Sivier at Vox Political says;

The Department for Work and Pensions has admitted defeat in its attempt to hide the number of people who have died while claiming incapacity benefits since November 2011 – and has announced that the number who died between January that year and February 2014 is a shocking 91,740.

This represents an increase to an average of 99 deaths per day or 692 per week, between the start of December 2011 and the end of February 2014 – compared with 32 deaths per day/222 per week between January and November 2011.

The DWP has strenuously asserted that “any causal effect between benefits and mortality cannot be assumed from these statistics”.

It is correct to make this point.

The DWP has also claimed that “these isolated figures provide limited scope for analysis and nothing can be gained from this publication that would allow the reader to form any judgement as to the effects or impacts of the Work Capability Assessment”.

However, the increase in the frequency of these deaths is enough to raise questions about the way the incapacity benefit system is being run – questions that demand full, frank and immediate answers.

For example, the work-related activity group is composed entirely of people who are expected to recover from their illnesses and be well enough to return to work within a year. In that group, there should be no deaths at all – barring accidents. Why have nearly 10,000 people lost their lives after being assigned there?

Read more here   http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2015/08/27/known-number-of-deaths-while-claiming-incapacity-benefits-nears-100000/#comments

In the report published by the DWP today it is stated that 

“DWP does not hold information on the reason for death, therefore no causal effect between the WCA decision and the number of people who died within a year of that decision should be assumed from these figures” (bolding mine)

That is rubbish, when someone dies the Registrar offers the Tell us once service; all government departments are notified DWP, HMRC Local Authority and so on.

A copy of the death certificate will be forwarded to DWP. The Registrar has had sight of the original and forwards scanned copies to the DWP.

All death certificates have to record the cause of death.

It’s only if the death is sudden or unusual will the death be referred to the Police/Coroner, but the end result is that following an inquest, a cause of death will be ascribed.

So IDS who is supposed to be a Christian, Catholic, Buddhist or whatever he bloody is this week, has not got the balls to make any comment to the media about this … Is that because he has lied about these figures and now his lies have caught up with him (ain’t Karma a bitch) Also, the DWP have spent vast amounts of taxpayers money on Lawyers and specialist Barristers in attempting to stop these figures being released after being told to do so by the Information Commissioners Office.

Special mention must be made to Mike Sivier who made the original request for these statistics over 2 years ago and has already been to one tribunal hearing to try and get the details released, all funded by himself I might add; no dipping in to the public purse for him!

Finally, I’d just like to point out (although I’m sure you know) that behind the figure of deaths is a person, a real person, who because of illness or disease had to rely on the state who punished them for being ill and diseased. It could have been any one of us.