United Kingdom: MPs ask Coffey why she is hiding nine secret DWP reports

A couple of months old but of relevance as Coffey is now the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care:

"MPs have asked the work and pensions secretary to justify her refusal to release nine potentially embarrassing reports about her department’s work, at least four of which focus on disabled claimants of benefits.

Stephen Timms, chair of the Commons work and pensions committee, wrote to Therese Coffey yesterday (Wednesday) to ask her to explain her failure to publish the nine documents.

He told her that the committee was concerned that the department’s “lack of transparency” could undermine trust in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

Three of the documents mentioned by Timms in his letter are currently the subject of freedom of information battles between DWP and Disability News Service (DNS).

Only this week, DWP told DNS that releasing potentially “embarrassing” information that would show which of its websites were breaking accessibility laws – one of the documents the committee is concerned about – would prevent its civil servants from giving “honest views” in their work."

More at: https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/mps-ask-coffey-why-she-is-hiding-nine-secret-dwp-reports/

 

What trust? there is no trust in the DWP to undermine. Certainly not by anyone it supposedly 'serves'.

Obviously they need to release the reports, but its hysterical that he thinks there is any trust to 'undermine'. It should read ''the lack of transparency confirms the basis for the mistrust, and reports of betrayal and widespread abuse from the vulnerable people your dept is tasked to support"

 

Ah, but he's talking about trust among people who think the DWP's job is mostly about fending off benefit scroungers. People who've never had any dealings with it themselves, some of whom might genuinely be horrified if they found out how it treats people who're extremely vulnerable and living in parlous conditions.

The image has already been tarnished a bit by Covid, which led to large numbers of people who'd normally have no contact with the system discovering that our welfare "safety net" is more of a tightrope attended by saboteurs, who're ready to push you off if you don't fall yourself.

John Pring has been beavering away at this for years, and it's a sign of the state the country's in that it hasn't gained more traction with the mainstream press.

 

As one of our local MPs' I suggest, with her local contempt for constituents, arrogance and her reputation, forget Savid J and DHSC....I believe NHS England are just going through the motions before dropping ME like a stone.

This post has been copied to a new thread where Coffey's possible DHSC role relating to ME/CFS can be discussed:
United Kingdom - Thérèse Coffey appointed Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Sept 2022