Some 'welfare-to-work' providers twice as tough for the same referrals
Photo: Damian Green, Work and Pensions Secretary
MPs tore into benefit sanctions today as a scathing report finds some ‘welfare-to-work’ programmes are twice as tough as others in handing out penalties.
The report by the National Audit Office accused the Department of Work and Pensions of doing too little to find out how sanctions are affecting claimants, while penalties are causing hardship, hunger and depression – with little evidence they do any good.
Some ‘work programme providers’, who offer paid work to job centre claimants, are making more than double the sanction referrals as others for similar people in the same area, the report said.
Meg Hillier, Labour MP and chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said:
“Benefit sanctions punish some of the poorest people in the country. But despite the anxiety and misery they cause, it seems to be pot luck who gets sanctioned.”
She added that while some studies suggest sanctions encourage people back to work, others stop claiming but don’t find work, and the DwP has no record of them. ‘If vulnerable people fall through the safety net, what happens to them?’ she said.
Nearly a quarter of all Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants were sanctioned at least once between 2010 and 2015.
Many are being sanctioned by mistake, with more than a quarter of work programme sanctions overturned last year, compared to 11 per cent of job centre penalties, the report said.
Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said the report shows ‘a failing department is trying to prop up a discredited system’.
“The DWP have turned this system in a postcode lottery and means that someone could be sanctioned in one place and not in another for the same thing,’ he added.
Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said the government must do more to reduce the number of mistaken sanctions, and the ‘notable differences in sanctions applications between comparable localities’.
Child Poverty Action Group chief executive Alison Garnham said:
“As today’s NAO report makes clear, the DWP has little idea what impact sanctions have on individuals and, with some areas imposing twice as many sanctions as others, appears to have little concern for consistency.”
A DWP spokesman said: ‘The number of sanctions has fallen, and they are only ever used as a last resort after people fail to do what is asked of them in return for benefits.’ They added the NAO recommendations will be considered and responded to.
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3 Responses to “Benefit sanctions ‘pot luck’ slammed by MPs after scathing report”
Law Man
One of the worst consequences of this iniquitous system is that it engenders hopelessness. This ‘under class’ have no stake in society. They have been abandoned.
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An irony is that the system is driven by ‘economics’: the idea that it saves money. Of course it does not. It causes losses such as:
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(1) these people do not work and so do not contribute to private wealth creation or to the public purse via taxes and NIC;
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(2) the cost of poor health and poor education;
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(3) dissatisfaction with society causing other losses.
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Is this the future of 21st century Britain?
Ann Blyth
This Government should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves picking on those least able to help themselves, the sick, disabled and unemployed. Do they have any idea how dreadful it is to lose a job and the hard struggle to find another. How disheartening it is to apply for jobs and get no answer or worse still go for an interview and to hear nothing back. Do they have any idea how much harder it is for a disabled person to get a job. Very few employers will employ the disabled and those that do pay a pittance. Austerity isn’t working so why do the Tories keep borrowing more and more money to fund it.
Jonathan Jones
Sanctions are not used as a last resort. The rules are applied inconsistently even within each office, to the extent that claimants can be sanctioned no matter what they do. One of my friends was once sanctioned for not applying for enough jobs. His skills and experience were very specialised, so not very varied, and he wasn’t applying for many jobs because he couldn’t find many jobs that he met the specifications for. The DWP weren’t interested in this problem and sanctioned him anyway. When he signed on again, he started applying for more jobs, giving less regard to whether or not he was suitable for the roles. He was sanctioned again, allegedly for wasting time applying for jobs he couldn’t get. Sanctions can be applied for so many inconsistent reasons that claimants can be put in situations where they literally can’t win.