PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Work Capability Assessment: Equality (17 November 2020)

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many complaints her Department has received from claimants in respect of breaches of the Equality Act 2010 during the processing of (a) personal independence payment and (b) limited capability for work and work related activities applications.

Asked by:
Navendu Mishra (Labour)

The Department takes every complaint incredibly seriously and will investigate any matters raised and respond accordingly as quickly as possible.

The Department does not record complaints information in a way which enables us to answer this question. DWP categorises complaints against specified categories that focus on identifying broadly where service has failed, for example, “DWP staff don’t treat me with respect - You discriminated against me”. It would be under this category Equality Act 2010 breaches would be captured.

As we would have to search through each complaint to obtain specific information about (a) processing of personal independence payment and (b) limited capability for work and work related activities applications would be to interrogate each complaint on a case by case basis to identify whether there had been breaches of the Equality Act 2010, the information requested would therefore could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

Answered by:
Justin Tomlinson (Conservative)
25 November 2020