Coroners have sent the DWP nine Prevention of Future Deaths reports since 2013A company seven weeks old with £100 in the bank won £200m of PPE contractsHMRC disconnected 44,000 callers who had already waited more than an hourUnpaid child maintenance is projected to reach £1bn by March 2031The Loan Charge has been linked to at least ten suicidesThe Covid-19 Inquiry found there was no emergency procurement plan at all

Coroners have sent the DWP nine Prevention of Future Deaths reports since 2013A company seven weeks old with £100 in the bank won £200m of PPE contractsHMRC disconnected 44,000 callers who had already waited more than an hourUnpaid child maintenance is projected to reach £1bn by March 2031The Loan Charge has been linked to at least ten suicidesThe Covid-19 Inquiry found there was no emergency procurement plan at all

Every claim linked to its source

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Investigations

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These are the stories we keep returning to. Each one runs across several years and more than one department, and none of them is finished.

Benefit deaths

Coroners have been writing to the DWP about the deaths of benefit claimants since 2013. We track what each report warned, what the department promised in response, and what actually changed.

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Pandemic contracts

The high priority lane, the ministerial referrals, the companies with no relevant track record, and the money the courts have since had to order returned.

Read the reporting

Child maintenance arrears

Billions assessed and never collected, calculations that nobody at the service will explain, and two groups of parents who both come away convinced the state is working against them.

Read the reporting

HMRC enforcement

A revenue service that pursued contractors through a policy linked to at least ten suicides while roughly forty billion pounds a year went uncollected.

Read the reporting

Key pieces

Start here

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 Desk19 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 Desk18 Aug 20263 min

Government Corruption

A company seven weeks old with £100 in the bank won £200m of PPE contracts through the VIP lane

Suppliers referred by MPs, peers and ministers were placed in a high priority lane for PPE contracts. PPE Medpro, referred by Baroness Michelle Mone, had been incorporated seven weeks earlier and held £100. It won contracts worth over £200m and was later ordered to repay £122m.

Money Desk14 Aug 20262 min

Government Corruption

Sir Wyn Williams published his Horizon compensation findings early because people were still not being paid

Sub-postmasters were prosecuted on the evidence of accounting software the Post Office had been told could produce false shortfalls. Sir Wyn Williams published his findings on redress separately, in July 2025, because years after exoneration people were still waiting to be compensated.

FTG Newsroom13 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 Desk12 Aug 20262 min

The Loan Charge has been linked to at least ten suicides and the policy is still in force

The Loan Charge, introduced to tackle disguised remuneration schemes, has been linked to at least ten suicides. Every concession the government eventually made was available to be made years earlier. The arguments did not change; the accumulated political cost did.

Money Desk10 Aug 20262 min