Miscommunication and misunderstanding: Telegraph finds "fit for work" deaths stat not as it seems

The Telegraph's Tom Chivers has uncovered what looks like an example of how poor communication of official figures can lead to inaccuracies being widely spread.

He was looking at claims that 10,600 people had died in the six weeks after being judged "fit to work" by a firm contracted by the DWP to assess eligibility for the Employment and Support Allowance.

A document from the department might have appeared, on first reading, to confirm the stat:

"In total, between January 2011 and November 2011, some 10,6000 claims ended and a date of death was recorded within six weeks of the claim end."

But when he spoke to the department he was told the number includes those who died in the six weeks before the end of their claim. So in an unknown number of cases the claims will have ended because claimants had died.

As he says of the "within six weeks" terminology:

"I would say that any natural reading of that implies that the six weeks are after the death, but since the DWP's own document uses that language, they've got no one to blame for the misunderstanding but themselves."

Update 10/07/2014

We've changed the wording to make clear the stats are about claims ending, not about claimants being found fit for work.