Over the past two years, a group of students working at the Bristol and Avon Law Centre have secured £1 million in compensation for their clients following appeals of decisions by the Department of Work and Pensions’ (DWP). The appeals focused on decisions of the DWP that individuals were ‘fit for work’ and therefore ineligible for employment and support allowance (ESA), a benefit paid to people unable to work. The students, from the University of West England, have achieved a 95% success rate out of the 200 DWP appeals taken. In taking these appeals, the students draft witness statements, request medical evidence, write legal submissions and represent their clients at oral hearings in front of a judge and a doctor.
The students’ success comes amid severe criticism of the British Government’s approach to welfare reform. The current coalition has made £17 billion of welfare cuts between May 2010 and May 2015. Additionally, the Minister of the DWP, Iain Duncan Smith, is currently facing calls for his resignation since it emerged that the Department fabricated testimonials from fake benefit claimants praising the system of welfare cuts.
Particular controversy has arisen over the fit-for-work assessment process. Statistics released by the DWP in August revealed that during the period December 2011 to February 2014 2,380 people died within 6 weeks of their claim for ESA being rejected. Government Ministers have denied there is a link between the deaths and welfare reforms.
It also now appears that the UN will be performing an investigation into the effect of UK welfare reforms on the human rights of disabled people. Inclusion Scotland, a leading advocacy group for disabled people in Scotland, has been advised by the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that it will be sending a Special Rapporteur to the UK in the “near future” as part of the formal inquiry.