Yesterday the Department for Work & Pensions, having failed to block a Freedom of Information request on the matter, grudgingly released data showing that between 2011 and 2014, 2380 employment support allowance (ESA) claimants died within two weeks of a work capability assessment declaring them fit to work.
(Oddly enough the Telegraph didn’t see fit to cover this story but did offer a guide to What’s Wrong With Corbyn, and the fact Carol Vorderman works out in the buff. The story also escaped the Daily Mail [Russian billionaire buys £292m yacht] and BBC website [badger cull in Dorset]. I can’t speak for Rupert’s organs since you have to pay first. There are limits to my thirst for knowledge.)
Work capability assessments – “a tough new test to weed out the workshy”, said the Mail at their inception – are outsourced. Atos had the contract but jumped ship when its PR firm said it gave high recognition for all the wrong reasons. (Allegations of wishy-washy medics sacked for failing to hit targets didn’t help.) Enter Maximus, who scooped the work at double the rate.
The methodologically scrupulous DWP is keen that we avoid hasty conclusions, which is no doubt why they didn’t want us burdened by the data in the first place. The stats, they say:
provide limited scope for analysis, and nothing can be gained from this publication that would allow the reader to form any judgment as to the effects or impacts of the WCA
Quite. But forgive my making two pedantic caveats. One, the DWP has meticulously refrained from collecting – or, worse, releasing – data which might enable such judgment.
Two, the data shows 50,580 ESA recipients dying within fourteen days of their benefits ending. The 2,380 found fit for work is a worryingly high 4.7% but the picture gets worse. A further 7,200 (14.3%) died after being placed in the anxiety inducing category of those currently unfit for work but whose claims should be re-evaluated in the future …
… from all of which we may conclude that the doubly run-for-profit WCA is, well, fatally flawed.