A new report exposes the human cost of the punitive benefits sanctions system
A new report on benefit sanctions, commissioned by a coalition of UK churches, has been released today, and it raises disturbing questions about a system which seems to punish the most vulnerable members of society.
Benefit sanctions, which are imposed when a claimant fails to meet one or more of the very specific conditions laid out for finding work, can last for months and even years. The report, produced by the Baptist Union of Great Britain, Church Action on Poverty, the Church in Wales, the Church of Scotland, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church, estimates that 6.8 million weeks of sanctions were handed out in 2013/14 and that over time one-fifth of all Jobseekers will be sanctioned.
The study collects stories of individuals whose punishment far outweighs their failure. The stories are frustrating, sometimes harrowing: a young man who was left homeless after sanctions were imposed when he missed an appointment, despite the fact that the letter had not been sent to the new address he had given the Jobcentre; a woman who was unable to fill out her job search online so did so in a booklet, as agreed by the centre, and was then sanctioned; a single mother who hanged herself, unable to cope with the financial hardship.
The stress and shame of being reduced to using food banks and sleeping on sofas for what in many cases is a simple administrative error is, the report finds, the result of one of the most severe systems of sanctions in the developed world, and undermines some of the core philosophies of the welfare state.
Although there is a ‘hardship payment’ system in place for those who have been sanctioned, it is withheld for two weeks after payments are stopped in order not to undermine the deterrant effect of sanctions. This, say the churches, amounts to punishing people with hunger.
Disturbingly, ‘the DWP guidance repeatedly acknowledges that the sanctions it administers are expected to cause deterioration in the health of normal healthy adults.’
The scale of the harm caused is vast; the report finds that at least a hundred people who are medically recognised as too mentally ill to work are sanctioned each day, and that around 100,000 children were affected by sanctions in the UK last year. Sanctions seem to be administered liberally and without much scrutiny, because six in 10 are overturned if challenged.
Furthermore there is nothing to suggest that sanctions help to get people into work. Recent data cited by the report shows that for every 100 sanctions imposed, 42 people will leave benefits but only seven will enter work.
Of what happens to the remaining 35 there is ‘not a clear picture’. It seems unreasonable to expect there to be a link between sanctions and increased employment; a system which expects this link believes that most people are jobless out of choice.
According to the report,
“No research has ever shown positive job outcomes of a sanction system that is as severe as the UK’s”
The controversial Universal Credit scheme will mean that sanctions affect more people including those who work; people earning below a threshold level of £11,300 and receiving UC will become subject to conditionality and sanctions.
Commenting on the report, TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said:
“Something has gone badly wrong when 100,000 children are innocent victims of benefit sanctions. Under this government the sanctions system has become a cruel maze in which it is all too easy for claimants to lose cash for minor breaches of rules and random decisions.”
“Even those who have contributed for years and are working hard to get a new job can find themselves sanctioned, and driven to food banks.”
The report recommends that sanctions are stopped for those with children or those suffering from mental illness, and that the two-week delay before a claimant can received hardship payment should be removed.
It also suggests a full independent review to ascertain whether this punitive system has any positive effect whatsoever.
Ruby Stockham is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow her on Twitter
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36 Responses to “100 people too mentally ill to work get their benefits sanctioned each day”
Leon Wolfeson
Uh, when was it on the table?
AV is *not* PR.
And, er, you seem to be proposing a rather odd (something like local list?) single-vote party list system which isn’t really that strictly proportional! You can’t divide the regions of the UK neatly into one of 10 blocks (not even Scotland), either.
I’d copy Germany’s MMP for the commons, wholesale. It’s a proven, working PR system.
littleoddsandpieces
Sanctions hit able bodied and disabled, all ages, heavily pregnant mothers, young mums with new babies, families with small children and people even up to 73 denied state pension under the new University Credit benefit rules.
Sanctions are months long when medicine knows it takes about a month to starve to death.
Foodbanks in the UK are not like in other EU nations (and getting EU grants) of daily free cafes, open 7 days a week and providing a free hot cooked meal and hot drink,
equally to the working poor, poor pensioners and unemployed, without all the conditionality of only a few vouchers a year.
Fareshare, the supplier to the foodbanks, does not get state subsidy and so only gets 5000 tonnes of surplus food fromt he food industry, instead of the 400,000 tonnes available.
No money saved because there has been an around 70 per cent rise in malnutrition hospital admissions to NHS hospitals and GPs’ budgets for the hunger sympton that permanently effects bone development in kids called Rickets.
One lady in the Channel 4 Dispatches programme of this subject March 2, showed a lady who had suffered the disability of Bells Palsy to the face from the stress of being sanctioned just before due to give birth, gave birth premature from the worry and still has the worry of how to buy milk for the new baby.
What on earth are pregnant women and new babies doing on Jobseekers Allowance and then sanctioned into starvation.
To end all this cruelty and to change the Labour party from a PASOK to a SYRIZA, there is a way to gain a multi party coaliton that would end starvation and for whom the poor could vote, as they do hold the balance of power. Never again will the so-called big parties get sufficient votes to rule by themselves.
See how on
http://www.anastasia-england.me.uk
You might care to share the website on your social media Facebook and Twitter,
because no newspaper is giving any coverage, even to TUSC, who are running 100 candidates in the general election, and should get TV coverage as running in 1/6th of the seats in England at least.
We only hear about The Greens and all they will do is keep the 1 MP they already have.
We canot have another 5 years of starvation, because the next hung parliament could fall as often as they do in such as Italy.
Ian
Parliamentrary Labour needs a cull of all those elected post ’97 and anyone who can be seen as sympathetic to New Labour ideals. We cannot afford this modern Labour party for much longer. Something has to give now that elections aren’t functioning as a pressure release any more. We tolerate so much because we know – knew – we could get rid in a year or two, now we can still get rid but can only realistically replace like with very similar, giving no relief whatsoever. If we aren’t offered a means of change – real change – we will eventually have to take it, physically if necessary.
Labour waited for someone to step up and oust Ed M, nobody did and now we’re stuck with them. With any luck the Tories will win (never thought I’d say that in a million years) and drive the public to revolt within months and Labour will receive such a poor showing at the polls they have no other choice but to radically change direction.
Leon Wolfeson
I’ve given up on Labour entirely myself, I’m afraid.
I support voting reform *instead*.
Also, no, the Tories have shown a distinct tendency to lock-in their changes and I think the UK would rapidly become somewhere I’d not want to live, period. Won’t get me to vote for a pro-austerity party, mind you, but still.
Ian
I think I’ve given up on Labour now but if it shows signs of change… Who knows?
I agree with you about the UK becoming somewhere I’d not want to live, there’s only the NHS allowing us a veneer of decency, IMO. I might be gone in three years at this rate.