The DWP stop benefits without notifying disabled and vulnerable people, and does not state why they have stopped the benefits. They treat claimants as though they are fraudsters, and do not treat individual cases with respect or in a timely manner. 

Disabled people are left with no money for long periods of time which is highly distressing to the individual. 

Suddenly stopping all payments until proof is received is a terrible burden. Firstly it is impossible to find out what is needed as the DWP does not notify the claimant in advance. When information is provided by the claimant it is not recorded on the system.

The DWP must treat all ESA claimants as innocent until proven guilty just as our legal process works and is deemed to be fair. Unfortunately the DWP stop all payments until a claimant can provide information without the DWP notifying the claimant as to what information is needed. When the claimant does provide the information the DWP delays processing this information and the claimant remains without any financial support for unacceptable lenghts of time.

Please support this request that the DWP MUST NOT STOP PAYMENTS TO VULNERABLE PEOPLE WITHOUT DUE NOTICE AND THAT THEY ACTIVELY MANAGE EACH CASE TO ENSURE IT DOES NOT CAUSE DISTRESS OR HARDSHIP.  

We all know there are probably a small minority of false claims. Please do not punish the genuine people for the sake of the minority. 

Of course the DWP SHOULD STOP PAYMENTS ONCE THEY HAVE PROVED THE CLAIMANT IS NOT ENTITLED. Absolutely right! But they must have assisted the claimant in providing all information.

Please do not forget (as the DWP appear to have) that the claimants of ESA are vulnerable people with mental and physical health problems. They are not always able to react in the same way a person without such difficulties would be able to react.

Personal experience: 

Twice so far the DWP have stopped all payments to my son without any notice or any request for information they needed and I am sure he is not alone in experiencing this type of action by the DWP.

 It took 6 months, the first time, to find out what information the DWP wanted. This took many,many hours of composing letters and making phone calls and meeting with our MP. I had to undertake this as my son was not able to deal with the stress and constant disappointments in tackling the DWP process. Only after I requested an FOI (freedom of information) action did I find a telephone number to by-pass the call centre in Newcastle (who were unable to provide any advice as nothing is recorded on their system when a case is with a review team, and they would not provide contact information for the review team!) and finally get through to the review team. It was only at this point we established what they needed. We were then able to provide this information within a matter of days and my son was back-paid his ESA allowance as it proved he was entitled to it all along! If it wasn't for the family providing food and care he could have been made homeless. I wonder how many vulnerable people have been made homeless in this situation.

Note: The FOI report failed to show records of all the contact we had made, our call and our letters were not recorded and other information was missing. 

Offer to DWP: I would be happy to meet with any DWP representative to walk through the process we were subjected to in order to establish my son was entitled to ESA throughout the time the DWP stopped his payments.