The Committee is today publishing correspondence with MP, Minister of State for
Employment, ahead of publication of the final report of
its Benefit sanctions
inquiry on Tuesday (advances from me on
Monday).
The Committee was deeply concerned, during the course of its
inquiry, at the paucity of evidence about either the
effectiveness of sanctions or their impact on claimants,
particularly vulnerable ones, and wrote to DWP with a
series of follow up queries.
In the course of the inquiry, which included an online
consultation about people’s experiences of benefit sanctions that
got over 500 responses, the Committee heard stories of extreme
hardship and distress, only in some cases caused by protracted
errors and failures of administration.
Key points to note:
- The Committee asked how the Department expects to evaluate
the policy of increased sanction lengths. The Minister did not
respond specifically and confirmed that “whilst the date of
failure is available (though not published), 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”. This means that although
under current regulations a sanction may be applied, ie your
Universal Credit standard allowance reduced by up to
100%, for up to three years, the
Department 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 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 people, however, have been assessed as
unable 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.
- The Department said in oral evidence that 70% and 60% of
claimants said sanctions made them more likely to look for work.
The Committee asked the Department to confirm how far this
research was based on the sanctions regime introduced by the
Welfare Reform Act 2012. The Minister confirmed that “the
research relates predominantly to the old regime”.
- The Committee asked what further evaluation has been done of
the regime introduced by the 2012 Act, in particular regarding
the impact and effectiveness of more severe sanctions. The
Minister said “The Department is building its understanding” and
will “attempt to isolate the impact of sanctions on transitions
into work and of earnings when in work”. He confirmed, however,
that “this will not provide evidence of the effectiveness of the
2012 Act, compared to the previous system”, though “it may
provide insight into the effectiveness of the current sanctions
system in supporting conditionality”.
- The Committee asked how frequently claimants meet their named
Work Coach. The Minister said that a study had begun to find out
and the Department would write to the Committee again 6 months.
- The Committee asked how much the department will save by
making hardship payments repayable. The Minister did not know,
but said “officials are currently considering the feasibility of
providing this information”.
- The Committee asked for updated data on hardship payments.
The Minister could not provide this information, but said the
Department “will look to update the previous ad hoc release”.
- The Committee asked what analysis the department had done to
understand the higher rate of sanctioning observed under
Universal Credit compared to the legacy system. The Minister said
that “The Department is yet to undertake robust analysis into the
extent of the effects on sanctions rates resulting from the
differences in policy between UC and legacy benefits”.
