Let’s start the New Year with some hopeful news

Mike Sivier's blog

140101appeal

The Information Commissioner and the Department of Work and Pensions will have to defend, before a tribunal, their decision to refuse my Freedom of Information request on claimant mortality.

Readers will recall that this blog, along with others, has been trying to use official channels to secure publication of the number of people who died while going through the claim process for Incapacity Benefit or Employment and Support Allowance during 2012.

This process has been drawn out beyond reason; the first request for the information was made before that year ended, and it is now 2014. First, the DWP flatly refused to provide any information, saying it had no intention to publish the figures – this was despite having published a statistical release on claimant deaths in 2011. Then, after I submitted a FoI request, the claim was that it was “vexatious”, and I had launched an “orchestrated” campaign “deliberately designed to…

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