More than 80 people a month are now dying after being declared ‘fit for work’. The safety net that used to be there for the most vulnerable is being torn to shredsGo to your local benefits office and desperation can be boiled down to a six-point blueprint,mounted on pink laminated card. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has assembled written guidance on suicide for its “frontline staff” – a euphemism for workers hired to call people and break it to them that they’ve been rejected for benefits. One section of the guidance – that is to be reported to managers to alert them of a suicidal intention” – instructs jobcentre staff to find out what the person plans, when it is planned for, or whether “the customer has the means to hand”.
I don’t know at what point social security and a risk of suicide became inevitable partners. Or when government “supporting people” – as the DWP described the guidance this week – began to mean,not helping people build their lives, but checking that they execute not want to die.
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Source: theguardian.com