The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) repeatedly made false claims about the numbers of people living on disability benefits, the official statistics watchdog has found.{jcomments on}
Ministers at the DWP repeatedly claimed that the majority of people on disability living allowance (DLA) were given benefits for life without any supporting medical evidence.
According to press releases sent out by the department: "more than 50% of decisions on entitlement are made on the basis of the claim form alone, without any additional corroborating medical evidence."
However, the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) found that the real percentage of claims passed without supporting medical evidence was just 10%.
The DWP also claimed that "under the current system of DLA, 71% of claimants get indefinite awards without systematic reassessments."
However the UKSA found that in the last two years of the DLA, just 23% and 24% of claimants were given indefinite awards.
The DWP accept that their claims were "ambiguous" and "had not been rechecked by the Department's analysts as is the usual practice."
The findings, uncovered by Channel Four News and seen in full by Politics.co.uk, followed a complaint by the charity Parkinson's UK.
The full story can be read on the Politics.co.uk website
The UK Statistics Authority published the correspondence last month
