An out-of-work university graduate was forced last year by her local Jobcentre to stop volunteering at a museum and do a voluntary work placement at Poundland to keep her unemployment benefits. When challenged about this, the DWP which administers unemployment benefits said: Working in retail is perfectly good experience for a career in a museum.

“More than 400,000 people have been out of work for more than two years, according to analysis of the latest Government data by think tank IPPR.” So runs its press release today, trailed in the Sunday press and the wires. I hope the IPPR didn’t spend too much of their donors’ money on this research, as the figure is updated quarterly and freely available from the DWP websit...

2:11pm Tue August 23rd Share229 Tweet 7 comments A French-owned IT company awarded a £100m government contract to carry out benefits assessments has been slammed by charities after forcing a thriving support forum for disabled people and their carers to shut down over mysterious libel concerns. The forum, which boasts more than 400 registered users and is run by the succe...

GMB members at Remploy will present senior officials at Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) in Sheffield today with over 1,000 applications from Remploy disabled employees to attend the DWP consultation meetings on the proposed closure of 54 Remploy factories where they work. All 54 Remploy factories are under threat of closure when current public

There’s been one good thing about the DWP incapacity benefit statistics - the response it’s provoked from disabled people and disability organisations. Take a look at these excellent posts from Batsgirl and Latent Existence. And now there’s a particularly important intervention from the Disability Benefits Consortium – a coalition of fifty charities and campaigning organisa...

EMPLOYMENT minister Chris Grayling has pledged that the Department for Work and Pensions will not move any department call-centre posts overseas.

After weeks of asking and several Freedom Of Information requests, I've finally unearthed the "assessment" the DWP did into Time Limiting (to one year) the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)! Clearly I use the word assessment in much the way ATOS do: pick a policy and then write some stuff that proves what you want to say. Just in case you are not an uber-geek like me and can't stay ...

Yesterday, the Conservative minister Chris Grayling told us that assessments used to determine whether or not someone is "fit for work" or not are "not money driven" - somehow ignoring the "target" of saving £1 billion from the sickness benefits bill. And here's Mr Grayling, during a recent DWP committee meeting, telling us that the decision to stop all ESA benefits entirely after one y...

The early bout of arctic weather has already triggered £100 million of extra benefits spending, more than the sum ministers had budgeted for the entire winter.

The Guardian reports, The head of the UK Statistics Authority has issued a public rebuke to welfare ministers over their use of official statistics, warning of “serious deficiencies” in the handling of unemployment data. Sir Michael Scholar, the head of the authority, said that by failing to show the evidence for claims made by ministers,