Welfare - Sanctions

Pretty much as soon as the Tory / Liberal Dem coalition came into government in 2010 they set about toughening up the welfare regime. Relying on flaky science that assumed that if you treated claimants mean it would force them into work (biopsychosocial model of health) the government created a hostile environment.

The coalition's 2012 Welfare Reform Act carried the hostile approach into law and saw the ramping up of the regime. The Lib Dems took legal advice prior to voting for the welfare reform act and were advised that the sanctions were illegal and foolishly boasted afterwards,in exchange for the 5p charge of plastic carrier bags, that they voted for the act, knowing full well it would be later overturned in court

The 2012 Welfare Reform Act introduced the "Claimant Commitment pledge" in 2013. The pledge or work plan was defined as “ regular specific tasks and training opportunities and the penalties claimants could face for failing to meet their responsibilities to get into work will be clearly spelt out”. These ‘tasks’ could include agreeing to apply for a certain number of jobs each week, taking part in ‘training opportunities’, furthering their education and other ‘tasks’ set out in a personal work plan. 635,000 jobseeker’s signed the new Claimant Commitment pledge between 14 October 2013 and 11 April 2014. The Claimant Commitment was partly blamed for a shocking 60 per cent rise in the number of jobseeker’s having their benefits sanctioned; where a claimant can see their benefits cut or stopped completely for weeks, months or even years for failure to adhere to the jobseeker’s agreement. The Citizens Advice Bureau said at the time, benefit sanctions can create barrier to employment. “People need a system that can take into account their situation, set suitable work search requirements and where necessary apply sanctions at a level that won’t limit their chances of employment. Whilst it is vital that people receiving taxpayers’ support do their utmost to find work, the model needs to work and not make it harder for claimants to find a job.” DWP statistics which show 38,969 of decisions to sanction were later overturned following an appeal.


 * “In the last year we’ve seen things get worse, rather than better, for many people on low-incomes. It’s been extremely tough for a lot of people, with parents not eating properly in order to feed their children and more people than ever experiencing seemingly unfair and harsh benefits sanctions. Unless there is determined policy action to ensure that the benefits of national economic recovery reach people on low-incomes we won’t see life get better for the poorest anytime soon" . Chris Mould - The Trussell Trust Chair

Single parents have always been a target for the divide and rule approach preferred by the Tories. In 2014 the coalition introduced new measures that meant many more single parents with children under five faced sanctions. The toughness of the rules along side overstretched job centres meant that more single parents were bound to suffer from sanctions. Gingerbread described it as a tick box exercise that failed to take into account the needs of the parents or help them into work. Even before the new rules were introduced 38% of single parents on appeal were found to have been wrongly sanctioned.


 * “The number of JSA Sanctions are at a 12 month high, and probably the highest ever on record. Yet, we don’t even know if these Sanctions are working. There have been many examples of people being sanctioned and not knowing why. If the aim of a sanction is to change peoples’ behaviour then people need to know why their benefits have been stopped otherwise it is just a punitive punishment which is trying and save money.” Dame Anne Begg - Work and Pensions Select Committee Chair

By 2014 the coalition sanctions were beginning to bite, with lone parents seeing since 2009 a 563% increase in sanctions, 65% increase for disabled and 76% increase for women. The growing concern about sanctions, particularly from job centre staff, led to a DWP review in 2014. Unfortunately the review was restricted to around one-third of Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) claimants. The PCS union said that the review failed to take into account mounting evidence which suggests that Jobcentre advisers are being pressurised into sanctioning the unemployed. The union also said that the current sanctions regime is a “pernicious and counter-productive” tool which does little to encourage unemployed people to look for work. Docking benefit payments can result "in time, that may have been spent looking for work, being taken up finding money to buy food and pay bills, including housing costs, or seeking welfare advice. Others may be forced to turn to food banks, such as the Trussell Trust who say that benefit delays, including over-zealous sanctions, account for a significant percentage of people who require food aid. "


 * “Jobcentre Plus staff want to build trusting relationships with claimants, but instead they are being made to harass them." Frances O’Grady - TUC General Secretary

Over the years a number of Jobcentre employees have come forward and revealed that the DWP gives sanction targets to staff and provides guidance on how to trip claimants up so that they can be sanctioned. This showed that from October 2010 sanctions skyrocketed, dropped when the regime was discovered and then began to rise again.

Under the coalition it was those with mental health issues that suffered most from sanctions. This was a result of MH issues making it impossible for some sufferers to meet the new hostile compliance regime. Figures released by the DWP, showed that between January and March 2014 9,851 adverse benefit sanctions decisions were made against ESA claimants with mental or behavioural disorders. This amounted to 60% of all sanctions in that period.

The Work and Pensions Committee had raised concerns in early 2014 about the sanctions regime, but it had been rejected by the government. In March 2015 they in the light of new evidence which raised concerns about the approach being adopted in a number of individual Jobcentres, and more broadly, including concerns about whether targets for sanctions existed. The report called for an independent review to examine the legislative framework for benefit sanctions policy, to ensure that the basis for sanctioning is well-defined, and that safeguards to protect the vulnerable were clearly set out. Dame Anne Begg MP, Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, said: “Benefit sanctions are controversial because they withhold subsistence-level benefits from people who may have little or no other income. We agree that benefit conditionality is necessary but it is essential that policy is based on clear evidence of what works in terms of encouraging people to take up the support which is available to help them get back into work. The policy must then be applied fairly and proportionately. The system must also be capable of identifying and protecting vulnerable people, including those with mental health problems and learning disabilities. And it should avoid causing severe financial hardship. The system as currently applied does not always achieve this.” She added: “Recent research suggests that benefit sanctions are contributing to food poverty. No claimant should have their benefit payment reduced to zero where they are at risk of severe financial hardship, to the extent of not being able to feed themselves or their families, or pay their rent." The report called for a series of evaluations to increase the evidence base, particularly around the efficacy and impacts of the new sanctions regime introduced by the coalition's Welfare Reform Act 2012. Dame Anne Begg said: “The Government introduced longer minimum sanction periods without first testing their likely impacts on claimants. The minimum sanction period is now four weeks, rather than one week. It is important that the impacts of the new sanctions regime are properly evaluated. There is currently no evidence on whether the application, or deterrent threat, of a four-week sanction makes it more, or less, likely that a claimant will engage with employment support or gain work. This is an area of policy which must be based on robust evidence. The Department needs to demonstrate that the application of the new sanctions regime is not intended to be purely punitive .”

The charity Mind raised serious concerns when it was revealed in August 2015 DWP guidance on hardship payments for sanctioned Jobseekers Allowance claimants says a person will only be a member of a vulnerable group if they have an accompanying physical health problem. Tom Pollard from Mind said they were "seeking clarity from the DWP as to why people with mental health problems who have had their benefits stopped aren’t considered to be vulnerable in this instance." A sanction can be applied for anything between 4 weeks and 3 years. For mental health sufferers sanctions can be particularly harsh as it can worsen their situation ensuing they cannot escape a downward spiral.

In 2015 it was discovered that the government had significantly understated the number of Jobseekers Allowance claimants being sanctioned. The government had stated that only a small minority of claimants were being sanctioned. Figures showed that since the coalition had come to power sanctions had more than doubled from 7.7% in 2010 to 16.7% (1 in 6) in 2014. More seriously this came at a time when the length of any given sanction had risen to a minimum of 4 weeks and a maximum of 3 years.

Between December 2012 and June 2015 the DWP imposed 70,452 sanctions on sick and disabled people. The represents a huge rise in sanctions against those who have been deemed unfit for work following a work capability assessment. Over a third (23,000) of these sanctions were successfully challenged. These sanctions are at odds with the coalition's own stipulation for sanctions which states... “You may get Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) if your illness or disability affects your ability to work”, including “work-related activity.”

A report by the Department of Sociology of the University of Oxford found "Globally, there is growing pressure on welfare systems to reduce spending. Starting in 2011, the UK introduced a series of reforms that expanded the use of punitive ‘sanctioning’, which terminates unemployment benefits if claimants fail to comply with one or more welfare conditionalities. We tested whether increasing sanctions under the new reforms reduce access to benefits without creating a concomitant rise in employment. Our findings indicate that the imposition of adverse sanctions is increasing exit from unemployment benefit in the UK. We were unable to detect an impact on employment recovery."

To bring the section "coalition of cruelty" to a close, it is worth looking at some detail at a survey first carried out by Salford City Council in 2014 and then followed up one year later. The report "DWP Benefit Conditionality and Sanctions in Salford- One Year On". Although the report covered Salford, it is clear that the same policies are carried out throughout the UK, so the outcomes will be the same. The report concluded the following:


 * The implementation of the DWP’s conditionality and sanctions regime continues to cause distress and destitution for claimant
 * An increased demand for support for the City’s public and community and voluntary sector agencies
 * Many vulnerable claimants are still receiving benefit sanctions which are often inappropriate and potentially unlawful
 * Illustrates the devastating impact sanctions have on the lives of people who are already struggling to make ends meet
 * Sanctions affect an individual’s ability to meet essential living expenses for themselves and family such as food and fuel
 * Sanctions can also lead to longer term problems including debt, rent and council tax arrears and in some cases destitution
 * Welfare Reform changes mean more people, particularly vulnerable claimants with significant health problems and parents with very young children will become subject to increasing conditionality and therefore at risk of sanctions
 * Universal Credit means claimants not reaching their required earnings threshold (35 hours times national minimum wage for those subject to all work requirements) are now subject to conditionality and can be sanctioned
 * Sanctions do not “incentivise people into work”
 * The sanctions regime actually serves as a barrier, preventing people from engaging in appropriate training, volunteering and demotivating employment-related activities
 * Sudden loss of income by imposing punitive sanctions often damages people’s mental health, create tensions within family relationships and may cause individuals to turn to crime in order to meet their basic survival needs

The 2010-2015 coalition had set the scene for a hostile sanctions environment. The Conservative government carried on the hostility from 2015 to present.

A report from the National Audit Office in November 2016 made it clear that there was still no evidence that sanctions worked. The report found that sanctions which have caused thousands of claimants to fall into hardship and depression are being handed out without evidence that they actually work. The DWP is also failing to monitor thousands of people whose benefits are being cut or withheld while many are being pushed outside the benefits system. The report was compiled before Theresa May’s government lowered the benefit cap by up to £6,000 in December 2016 – another change which will hit many of those claiming benefits. The cap was reduced to £20,000.

Despite all the research, reports and warnings that sanctions are counter-productive and force people out of work and into destitution, the government carried on with its the policy. In February 2017 A report by the public accounts committee found that some Work Programme providers and jobcentres withhold payments to twice as many people as others in the same area. The report by parliament’s spending watchdog urged the government to review the use of financial penalties, which it found “have increased in severity in recent years and can have serious consequences” such as forcing claimants into homelessness. It says the Department for Work and Pensions has poor data with which to evaluate what works and is unable to estimate the wider impact of sanctions – including their overall cost or benefit to the public purse. The MPs wrote: “There is an unacceptable amount of unexplained variation in the department’s use of sanctions, so claimants are being treated differently depending on where they live. It does not know whether vulnerable people are protected as they are meant to be. Nor can it estimate the wider effects of sanctions on people and their overall cost, or benefit, to government.”

By 2018 the sanctions regime had done massive damage, with more than a million benefits sanctions imposed on disabled people since 2010. A comprehensive analysis by Ben Baumberg Geiger in collaboration with the Demos thinktank into the treatment of unemployed disabled claimants revealed that they are up to 53% more likely to be docked money than claimant who are not disabled. This raises serious concerns about how they and their conditions are treated. The study found that disabled claimants receiving jobseekers’ allowance – given to people who are out of work – were 26-53% more likely to be sanctioned than claimants who were not. Those hit by sanctions reported that the disparity arose because jobcentre staff failed to take sufficient account of their disabilities. The study found that more than 900,000 JSA claimants who report a disability had been sanctioned since May 2010. People who claim a different benefit, employment and support allowance, and have been placed in a work-related activity group – which requires them to attend jobcentre interviews and complete work-related activities –can also be sanctioned. The research found that more than 110,000 ESA sanctions have been applied since May 2010.

As evidence grew that sanctions were not helping claimants into work, but appeared to be a cost cutting exercise for the goverment. Pressure was placed on the government to bring in a "yellow card" system where claimants were given 14 days prior to sanctions kicking in to contest the decision. The DWP trialed in on just 6500 claimants and later said that it had made no difference to the sanction outcomes. However out of the 6500 trialed over a short period, approximately 450 were able to contest their sanction successfully. This would have meant in a full rollout 1000s could have avoided unfair sanctions. However the DWP said the trial added too much strain on the system and scrapped it after the trial.

The commons Work and Pensions Select Committee (WPSC) expressed in November 2018 anger and frustration over the lack of evidence provided by the DWP to an inquiry into the effectiveness and impact of punitive benefit sanctions. In the course of the inquiry, which included an online consultation about people’s experiences of benefit sanctions that got over 500 responses, the WPSC heard stories of extreme hardship and distress, only in some cases caused by protracted errors and failures of administration. Official figures show Universal Credit claimants are far more likely to face a sanction compared to the ‘legacy’ benefits it is replacing. Data also suggests that sanctions are being imposed for longer periods, and sometimes against vulnerable people the DWP accept are too ill or disabled to work. In a letter to Tory Employment Minister Alok Sharma, the WPSC asked the DWP a number of important questions, including how it expects to evaluate the policy of increased sanction lengths. The DWP Minister failed to provide a satisfactory answer, the Committee says, but simply confirmed that “whilst the date of failure is available, we still do not hold the start and end dates for a sanction and thus we do not hold the length of the sanction either”. The WPSC said this means that although under current regulations a sanction may be applied for up to three years, it shows that the DWP doesn’t know how long each sanction actually lasts. “It is difficult to see how they can therefore assess the effect of sanction length”, the Committee said. The Minister’s response says that because less than 1% of claimants in the ESA Support Group – who do not have mandatory conditionality – move off the benefit and into work, it would be a “disservice” to exempt disabled people from sanctions. This group of claimants, however, have been assessed as unfit to work,.. or even to look for work. The very low rate of movement into work is therefore hardly counter-intuitive, and the argument difficult to comprehend.

In March 2019 The British Psychological Society (BPS) called on the DWP to put an end to its cruel benefit sanctions regime, which they say is known to be harmful to vulnerable people’s mental health. In a statement signed by mental health experts and charities, the BPS argued that sanctions have been shown not work when used on people with mental health conditions and should be stopped. The government chose not to act upon the demand.


 * “People should never be left with no income at all as a result of a benefits sanction, there should be an urgent independent investigation into the sanctions regime, with a moratorium on sanctions during that period.” Mhoraig Green - Citizens Advice Scotland Social Justice spokesperson

Despite countless reports and warnings to the government, stringent sanctions still continued as a method of punishment. In August 2019 charities called for an urgent investigation into the Government’s flagship Universal Credit benefit and sanctions regime, as new figures revealed that over 250,000 people on the new benefit have seen payments slashed. Figures released by the DWP showed that a shocking 256,000 Universal Credit claimants were hit by adverse benefit sanction decisions between May 2016 and April 2019. The data also reveals that 5% of Universal Credit sanctions have been for six months or longer. From February 2019 to April 2019, 84% of all Universal Credit full service decisions resulted in a sanction, up 13% from November 2018 to January 2019.