19 May 2022
What: DWP tells Disability News Service (DNS) editor John Pring that his latest attempt to secure information about IPRs is ‘vexatious’. It refuses to provide the information in response to a freedom of information request. He had been attempting to obtain copies of all the IPRs carried out between 1 September 2020 and 28 April 2022. But DWP refuses to release the documents, claiming that to do so would place an ‘undue burden and pressure’ on the department, despite its £7 billion budget. It argues that reviewing each of the IPRs to work out which parts of the Freedom of Information Act it can use to prevent them being released to DNS is so ‘time consuming’ that it has ‘reached a point where it is placing undue burden and pressure on the Department’. Senior MPs criticise DWP’s move.
Why significant: John McArdle, co-founder of Black Triangle, says it is ‘no surprise that the government is doing everything possible to prevent this information from seeing the light of day’, and adds: ‘To call any efforts to establish all the facts surrounding these tragic deaths “vexatious” is an appalling insult to all those who have perished and their bereaved loved ones whom they have left behind.’