Author

Welfare Desk

u/welfare-desk

Covers the Department for Work and Pensions, the Child Maintenance Service, and the tribunal system claimants are pushed through to get a decision overturned.

Joined 27 August 202613 published articles0 threads0 comments

Published articles

DWP Corruption & Scandals

Coroners have warned the DWP about dying claimants nine times since 2013

Between 2013 and 2024 coroners issued the Department for Work and Pensions nine Prevention of Future Deaths reports following the deaths of benefit claimants. In that period the department has publicly accepted a coroner’s findings, apologised and changed its practice on a single occasion.

Welfare Desk27 Aug 20263 min

DWP Corruption & Scandals

The Carer’s Allowance overpayment scandal was caused by the DWP, its own review found

Carers who earned a pound over the weekly threshold lost an entire week of benefit. The DWP held the earnings data that would have flagged it and in many cases did nothing with it for years before demanding the money back. The independent review published in November 2025 found the fault lay with the department.

Welfare Desk26 Aug 20263 min

DWP Corruption & Scandals

The DWP’s own analysis found its fraud algorithm treats claimants differently by age and nationality

A fairness analysis carried out by the Department for Work and Pensions itself found statistically significant referral and outcome disparities by age, disability, marital status and nationality in the machine learning system used to select Universal Credit claims for fraud investigation.

Welfare Desk25 Aug 20262 min

DWP Corruption & Scandals

The government costed the April 2026 health element cut before it took effect: 50,000 more people in poverty

From April 2026 the Universal Credit health element for new claimants was cut from £423.27 to £217.26 a month. Government analysis published in March projected that around 50,000 people who become ill or disabled would be pushed into poverty by 2030 as a result.

Welfare Desk23 Aug 20262 min

CMS Corruption & Scandals

Unpaid child maintenance is on course to reach £1bn, thirteen years after the CMS was created to fix exactly this

The Child Maintenance Service was created to resolve the Child Support Agency’s arrears problem. The Public Accounts Committee projects unpaid maintenance on Collect and Pay reaching £1bn by 2031, and the National Audit Office found the service had not increased the number of effective maintenance arrangements at all.

Welfare Desk20 Aug 20262 min

CMS Corruption & Scandals

Parents are charged a fee when the CMS steps in because the other parent stopped paying

When a paying parent stops paying, the case moves to Collect and Pay and both parents are charged. The receiving parent loses a percentage of maintenance owed to their child as the price of the state enforcing an arrangement that somebody else broke.

Welfare Desk19 Aug 20262 min

Injustice

The judiciary issued formal guidance on non-molestation orders because too many were being granted without the proper test being applied

A non-molestation order can be granted without the respondent present, and breaching one is a criminal offence carrying up to five years. Practice Guidance issued by the judiciary in July 2023 addressed applications being made without the stringent test for a without-notice order being met.

Welfare Desk11 Aug 20263 min

Injustice

Private law family cases now take around nine months, and Cafcass caseloads have hit a five-year high

Children Act private law cases took an average of 35 weeks to conclude between January and March 2026, having run at 41.8 weeks across 2024. Cafcass received 42,172 private law cases in the year to March 2026, the highest since 2020-21.

Welfare Desk10 Aug 20262 min

Injustice

In 40% of private family law cases, neither parent has a lawyer

Between April and June 2024, neither party had legal representation in 40% of private family law cases. Both parties were represented in 19%, down from 41% in the first quarter of 2013 before the LASPO cuts took effect.

Welfare Desk09 Aug 20262 min

Injustice

An estimated 1.5 million men experienced domestic abuse last year. There are around 429 refuge spaces.

ONS figures for the year ending March 2025 estimate that 1.5 million men aged 16 and over experienced domestic abuse, and that male victims accounted for 27.9% of police-recorded domestic abuse crimes. Refuge provision for men stood at around 429 spaces across the UK.

Welfare Desk08 Aug 20262 min

Injustice

What the family courts will and will not accept about alienating behaviour

Guidance issued by the Family Justice Council in December 2024 sets out how courts should respond to allegations of alienating behaviour. Understanding the distinction it draws matters more to a parent in proceedings than any campaigning position on either side.

Welfare Desk07 Aug 20262 min

Injustice

What Cafcass actually does, and what a section 7 report decides

Cafcass is the body that advises the family court about what is safe and in a child’s interests. Most parents encounter it twice, through the initial safeguarding letter and then through a section 7 report, and neither process is well explained before it happens.

Welfare Desk05 Aug 20262 min

Injustice

There were over 230,000 section 47 child protection enquiries last year, and fewer than a third reached a conference

Local authorities carried out more than 230,000 section 47 child protection enquiries in the year ending March 2025, the highest on record. The proportion resulting in an initial child protection conference has fallen from 47% in 2012-13 to 31% in 2024-25.

Welfare Desk04 Aug 20262 min

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