DISABILITY BENEFITS
We took the DWP to task over disability benefits, and we’re not stopping here
The remarkable response to our exclusive story on disability benefit appeals in May uncovered the shocking scale of people being failed by the welfare system.
Since then, The Big Issue has been working hard to hold the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to account and to give disabled people a voice.
We found the government rejected almost 90% of initial appeals for the personal independence payment disability benefit. Yet the majority (68%) of those decisions are overturned on appeal.
After the story racked up hundreds of thousands of views online, Big Issue social justice reporter Isabella McRae launched an ongoing investigation into the disability benefits system.
She tracked down benefits assessors who had never spoken out before. They blew the whistle on the DWP, revealing that disabled people are “set up to fail” by the target-driven disability benefits system. This reached hundreds of thousands of readers both online and in print, and hundreds of disabled and ill people and their families wrote to The Big Issue to share their stories. We have published many of their letters to
