by Robyn Banks

Over the past few months, a lot has been made of the apparently soon to be released DWP statistics on the number of people who have died after their benefits were stopped. Over 235,000 people signed a petition asking for them to be released, but the government has been accused of constant stalling in an effort to keep the real number hidden. The DWP claims they are stalling because they plan to release the statistics in a more contextual and understandable fashion, arguing that the statistics alone “. . . were likely to be misinterpreted. Specifically, incorrect conclusions were likely to be drawn as to causal links between assessment outcomes and mortality. Such misinterpretations would be contrary to the public interest, particularly given the emotive and sensitive context of mortality statistics”.

This makes sense, especially given the ability of statistics to be misinterpreted and used for one’s own ends. It might not be clear, for example, how many of those people would have died anyway from terminal illness, as benefits are stopped when a person enters hospital, or how many of those benefits were stopped for legitimate reasons. The well-known 10,600 figure which circulated earlier in the year turned out to include not only those who had their benefits stopped 6 weeks before their death, but those who had them stopped 6 weeks after. Far from having a hand in the deaths of 10,600 people, the government may have simply stopped the benefits of 10,600 people who were already dead. But to my mind, we don’t need to use an impersonal number to criticise our benefits system.

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