The DWP has issued guidance on suicide risk-management to its Glasgow call-centre workers, according to the Sunday Herald.
The guidance is meant to help staff dealing with unsuccessful Universal Credit claimants who are threatening to self-harm or take their own life.
As part of a six-point plan for dealing with suicidal claimants who have been denied welfare payments, call-centre staff have been told to wave the guidance, printed on a laminated pink card, above their head.
A manager is then meant to rush over to listen in to the call and workers must “make some assessment on the degree of risk” by asking a series of questions.
One section of the six-point plan, titled “gather information”, demands that staff allow claimants to talk about their intention to commit suicide.
The call-centre workers, who earn between £15,000 and £17,000 a year, must “find out specifically what is planned, when it is planned for, and whether the customer has the means-to-hand”.
Staff are also warned in the plan that they may have “thoughts and feelings” about the situation afterwards and offered reassurance that “this is all part of the process of coping with the experience and is normal”.
Lynn Henderson, Scottish secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, said:
“As benefits are cut, people in desperate need are finding they cannot contemplate a future worth living for – and DWP’s solution is to ask overburdened staff, who are under enormous pressure themselves, to take responsibility for spotting whether members of the public are likely to take their own lives or not.
It’s disgraceful that this Government, rather than recognising that its own policies are driving people to despair, is applying sticking-plaster solutions by asking our low-paid, undervalued members to take on what are literally life-or-death responsibilities.”
A DWP spokesman said: “Our frontline Jobcentre staff work hard every day supporting people to find jobs and it is only right we provide a range of training and guidance to assist them in their work.”
For more information see 'Suicide guidance' given to benefits staff preparing for desperate calls on welfare reform @ www.heraldscotland.com
Although not yet fully rolled out across the UK, Universal Credit is already available to benefit claimants in more than 40 “Jobcentre areas” in Scotland, including Glasgow, Edinburgh, Stirling, Inverness and Dumfries as well as parts of Lanarkshire, Aberdeenshire and Ayrshire.
Universal credit is a new means-tested benefit that will eventually replace the following current means-tested benefits:
Universal credit is a new means-tested benefit that will eventually replace the following current means-tested benefits:
- child tax credit;
- housing benefit;
- income-related employment and support allowance;
- income-based jobseeker's allowance;
- income support; and
- working tax credit
For more information see our Universal Credit factsheet