DWP 'shocked' by its own disability tribunal record (UK)

The Department for Work and Pensions has lost more employment tribunals for disability discrimination than any other employer in Britain since 2016.

BBC Panorama found the DWP lost 17 of 134 claims of discrimination against its own disabled workers from 2016-19.

And it paid out at least £950,000 in both tribunal payments and out-of-court settlements in that time.

The DWP said it was "shocked" by the data but was reviewing its processes to ensure all staff were treated fairly.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51756783

 

If an organisation has a culture that discriminates against the disabled people that it is meant to help, it's no surprise to me that it will be more likely to discriminate against those disabled people that it employs.

 

They'll faint when they read the stats on lost disability benefits tribunals, then!

 

And there I was thinking the header referred to the number of benefits tribunals they'd lost ...

 

Programme on the subject tonight:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000g6rz

 

The DWP lose a much higher percentage of benefits tribunals than they lose employment tribunals. There are probably now more recent articles than this link, but the DWP is losing around 70% of PIP appeals (see https://www.theguardian.com/politic...eals-department-for-work-and-pensions-figures ).

What this recent finding reveals is that the DWP here in the UK treats its own disabled staff badly as well as, as found by the UN, breaching the human rights of disabled benefits claimants. This finding is not surprising, but does confirm that there is an institutional culture of prejudice against a sizeable portion of the very people they are meant to be helping.