DWP spent £50,000 trying to stop release of review into disabled man’s death

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Previous government spent almost £1m trying to prevent release of documents in 56 legal cases

Errol Graham starved to death in June 2018 after the DWP wrongly stopped his out-of-work disability benefits. Photograph: Handout

Ben Quinn

Thu 2 Jan 2025 07.00 GMT

More than £50,000 of taxpayers’ money was spent on lawyers to try to prevent the release of a safeguarding review ordered after a disabled man starved to death in his own home.

The costs were part of a bill of nearly £1m spent under the (conservatives circa 2023) government to prevent the release of various documents under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act.

The figures were revealed after requests by the Democracy for Sale newsletter, which sought details of spending under the last government in attempts to prevent the release of information.

Some of the spending that was uncovered related to an attempt by a campaigner at the Child Poverty Action Group charity to obtain the results of a review by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) into its safeguarding procedures.

The existence of the review was revealed in reports about the death of Errol Graham, who starved to death in June 2018 after the DWP wrongly stopped his out-of-work disability benefits, leaving him without any income.

The information commissioner ordered the department in 2022 to release the results of the review, which the DWP had been trying to keep secret for two years.

Graham, 57, weighed just four and a half stone when his body was found by bailiffs who were trying to evict him, eight months after his benefits were stopped.

Despite spending £35,600 on solicitors and £15,400 on a barrister, the DWP’s appeal was dismissed and the information was disclosed to Owen Stevens, a universal credit adviser at the Child Poverty Action Group.

A DWP spokesperson said the department complied with FoI guidance, but added: “Occasionally we exercise our right to challenge decisions from the Information Commissioner’s Office, which can incur legal costs.

“These are justified to ensure we are protecting and handling information lawfully in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act.”

Ministerial departments in the last government spent £937,000 fighting transparency in 56 legal cases that were listed in 2023.

Many of the attempts at secrecy failed, with judges ruling that the public interest was best served by the release of official documents.

In other cases, attempts at increasing transparency were thwarted. Judges on a freedom of information tribunal ruled last year that the cost of protecting members of the royal family could not be revealed to the public.

The DWP and the Ministry of Defence meanwhile spent six figure sums of taxpayers’ money to fight transparency, spending £120,000 and £105,000, respectively.

However, the real government spend is likely to be substantially higher than the £937,000 because many departments refused to answer the request or claimed not to hold any information.

Information was obtained on 58 of the 118 cases on the government’s case register for 2023.