One Million Disabled People Sanctioned since 2010

By on May 22, 2018 • ( 4 Comments )

A shocking four-year study by University of Kent lecturer Ben Baumberg Geiger & the Demos cross party think tank, has found that disabled claimants receiving Job Seekers Allowance, (JSA), were 26-53% more likely to be sanctioned than claimants who were not. In just ten years they found that; disabled people have been hit with OVER 1 million sanctions.

The comprehensive study, (which you can see here), into the treatment of unemployed disabled claimants has revealed that; they are up to 53% more likely to be sanctioned, than claimants who are not disabled.

Sanctions as I explained in a previous blog post on my site, are given as a punishment when claimants allegedly breach the conditions of the benefit they are on. eg. Late for an appointment.

The government has claimed that the use of sanctions helps people in getting into work more quickly. However the study found that there is little evidence to support this, especially in the case of disabled claimants, There is also evidence that the threat of sanctions can lead to anxiety and broader ill health as I have mentioned in my case.

Demos also found that disabled claimants receiving JSA, were 26-53% more likely to be sanctioned than claimants who were not. It’s thought that DWP staff’s failure to take the claimants disabilities into account is the major driver for this.

However, a spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said it did not recognise these figures: “If someone has a health condition, we work with them to reduce what they need to do, and people are always supported to meet the requirements of a tailored claimant commitment, which they agree with their work coach. This sets out what is expected of them in return for the support they will receive. Sanctions are only used when someone has failed to meet these requirements without good reason – this is in a minority of cases and people are given every opportunity to explain why they have failed to do so before a decision is made.”

The study found that more than 900,000 JSA claimants who report a disability have been sanctioned since May 2010. The research found that more than 110,000 Employment & Support Allowance, (ESA), sanctions have been applied since May 2010. That’s over a million disabled people having their money cut.

This comes as no surprise to me as when I initially claimed ESA in 2011, I was placed in the work related group and soon found myself sanctioned for not looking for work or attending meetings, (I was in Hospital). It took over two years to sort that mess and it feels like I’m back at square one with Universal Credit.

The Conservative Government has had 8 years of people complaining, suffering and in some cases; dying, to address the situation regarding sanctions.

The researchers recommend a reduction in the use of so-called “benefit conditionality” for disabled people and a strengthening of the safeguards to ensure disabled people are not unfairly punished because of their disability.

Culture of Disbelief

Polly Mackenzie, director of Demos, said “Conditionality is important in any benefits system, but when disabled people are so much more likely to be sanctioned, something is going wrong. Jobcentre advisers and capability assessors too often have a culture of disbelief about disability, especially mental illness, that leads them to sanction claimants who genuinely could not do the job they are being bullied into applying for.

We need to think again about how we assess work capability. Employers also need to be better at adapting to disabled people’s needs so that more jobs can be done by people with fluctuating conditions.”

In 2016 the National Audit Office found that there was no evidence that sanctions were working.

The government’s refusal to accept this is, in my humble opinion, evidence of wilful neglect. They have repeatedly been told that the system needs to change but have steamrolled ahead regardless. At some point they will have to do something.

Conditionality is not easy to implement

So at the end of this, what do we know? In his (open access) review paper, on which the article is based, Ben Baumberg Geiger summarises the evidence into four ‘stylised facts’:

Requirements for disability benefit claimants are common, but sanctioning is rare (particularly outside of the UK and Australia).
Assessment and support are critical in making conditionality work on the ground, and can be combined into ‘passive’, ‘supportive’, ‘demanding’ or ‘compliance-based’ systems.
The limited but robust existing evidence suggests that sanctioning may have zero or even negative impacts on work-related outcomes for disabled people.
Individual case studies in ‘compliance-based’ systems suggest that sanctioning in the absence of other support can lead to destitution, and that conditionality can harm mental health.

“While we need to know more, it is already clear that we cannot assume that conditionality for disabled benefit claimants is easy to implement, nor that it will have purely positive consequences. Policy may have run ahead, but research is now starting to catch up. It is crucial for the well being of disabled people around the world that deeper knowledge and more informed policy go hand-in-hand from this point.”

In summary it is now beyond any reasonable doubt that sanctions on any type of benefit don’t work. They instil a culture of fear which is leading to further stress on both claimants and the system.

The opposition parties, in-fact all MPs, need to lobby, harass and force the government into to scrapping the controversial use of sanctions. The go against the basic human right of dignity.

I’ll be writing more about work capability assessments soon and hope to shed a light on the target led culture that is attempting to force disabled and vulnerable people into work, against the advice of doctors.

Hope you’ve found this article helpful and I look forward to the comments.

@RespectIsVital

Alex

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