Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many reviews the Government has undertaken after people claiming benefits have died or come to serious harm; and of those reviews how many have (a) concluded and (b) commenced following a Prevention of Future Death report.

Internal Process Reviews form a core part of the Department’s overall approach to investigating the circumstances of a case where potential issues have been identified.

We have made significant improvements to Internal Process Reviews, which including forming the Internal Process Review Group, chaired by the Customer Experience Director in 2020, to established to increase oversight of IPRs at a more senior level.

We are improving the tracking and monitoring of improvements from all IPRs to ensure IPR reports are now being drafted to new consistent standards, raising the visibility of IPRs across the Department.

DWP have undertaken 4 Peer Reviews and 139 Internal Process Reviews involving either a customer death or serious harm from the operational year 2015-16 to date.

The Department replaced Peer Reviews with Internal Process Reviews in 2015. Due to the Department’s document retention policies, we do not hold a complete record of cases prior to 2015-16.

The Department has commenced and concluded 2 Internal Process Reviews following receipt of a Prevention of Future Death Report.