DWP forced to admit 1 in 5 privately contracted benefit assessors aren’t safeguard trained

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been forced to admit that a large number of privately contracted benefit assessors have not received safeguarding training.

This puts vulnerable disabled claimants at risk of harm whilst navigating the cruel benefits system, which has already claimed so many lives.

DWP were called up on their duty to safeguard in May last year

In May 2025, a report from the Work and Pensions Committee on safeguarding vulnerable adults called for a new independent organisation to be set up. The body would bring to light the number of claimants who had been put at risk by the DWP.

At the time, chair of the committee Debbie Abrahams said

Deep-rooted cultural change of the DWP is desperately needed to rebuild trust and put safeguarding at the heart of policy development.

Then in December 2025, in a written statement, DWP chief Pat McFadden gave an update to the House of Commons. He said he wished to “reaffirm” his department’s commitment to safeguarding and their responsibility to protect claimants.

In his statement McFadden said:

Our immediate priority is to make safeguarding everyone’s business, with clear steps to recognise, respond to, and report concerns.

Mcfadden pledged that all clinical roles will have mandatory Level 3 safeguarding training. He said:

Safeguarding must be a system-wide endeavour. It requires transparency, accountability, and collaboration across Government and with partners.

Surprise, Labour blames the Tories

However, as the WPC heard this week, that is not the case. Employment Minister, Diana Johnson, was giving evidence on the state of employment support for disabled people when she shared an update on safeguarding vulnerable claimants.

As is typical with this Labour government she started by blaming the Tories, as if Labour haven’t been in power for a year and a half. In which time they’ve either done fuck all or made disabled people’s lives worse with their policies.

Johnson said she was shocked that the last lot:

Didn’t think that safeguarding was an issue that they needed to be concerned about

Which is all well and good but your lot haven’t done much better Diana, despite you claiming that “things have moved on considerably”

Labour proved just as bad as Tories once again

As proof of this she shared that while all of the DWP’s own clinical staff get mandatory Level 3 training, only 1 in 5 of contracted staff get the same level.

This means staff employed by Maximus, Capita, Serco, and Ingeus who inflict cruel benefit assessments on disabled people aren’t trained in recognising harms or risks to life. These companies carry out hundreds of thousands of PIP and WCA assessments every year.

She blamed this huge oversight on the fact that there’s such a high turnover rate of staff, meaning there’s not enough time for training.

She said:

In terms of our contractors that we use in the DWP, we hover around 80 per cent in terms of the training at level three because of the churn and the turnover of those individuals

DWP staff don’t stick around, wonder why

In January, the DWP published a report from 2022 which showed that 52% of new benefits assessors didn’t make it through their first year. Assessors reported feeling “despised” and like “cogs in machines”. So it’s no wonder there’s such a high staff turn over.

One of the respondents from the survey reported “working herself to death”, as she had no choice but to work from 5am to 10pm. This will only be ramped up by the DWP’s desperate attempts to massage the numbers of the PIP reassessment backlog.

As the Canary previously reported, the department diverted staff from dealing with new claims to get the backlog down. While the DWP got to brag that it carried out 96% more reviews in quarter 3 of 2024, 40,000 new claimants were kept waiting. As a recent report found, delays to PIP are endangering people’s lives and costing the DWP too.

Labour are worse for disabled people than the Tories – it’s time they admitted that

It’s absolutely unacceptable that the people who are supposed to determine whether disabled people get the support they need are not trained to protect vulnerable people. In a department that is responsible for so many deaths, this seems like a deliberate, violent act. But it’s just another in a long line for the DWP.

It’s also getting beyond fucking old that the now Labour led DWP are still blaming the Tories. Not only have they been in power for a year and a half, but in that short time they’ve planned cuts and policies which are even more dangerous to disabled people.

You don’t get to act like our saviours whilst you’re building the gallows yourself.

Featured image via the Canary