Twenty years ago, an American supermarket, discovering that its own low-paid employees needed to use a food bank, stopped supplying that food bank with food. Old traditions die hard. Here, the Department for Work and Pensions is to cease referring benefit claimants to food banks because it “breaches data privacy law” (Jobcentres told to stop referring benefit claimants to food banks, 16 February).
Some food banks will no longer supply some families with food. The logic of DWP’s position is that all of the other agencies involved in referral – social services, charities and health centres – must also be in breach of data protection regulation.
