ephemerid wrote:HindleA wrote:Morning.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/patr ... CMP=twt_gu" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
MPs' inquiry: Five things we've learned about benefit sanctions
1. It’s official: sanctions are bad for your health
2. If you are ill to start with, sanctions are really, really bad for your health
3. Sanctioning is a postcode lottery
4. Many sanctioned people “disappear” - but why?
5. Jobcentre staff feel under pressure to sanction claimants inappropriately
"As a [jobcentre] we are very closely monitored around around sanctions rates. Each week [there is]... a print out of the percentage of sanction decisions we are making. This is clearly a bullying tool in order to bring LMDMs [labour market decision-makers, or people who decide on whether to apply a sanction] into line with
senior management’s requirement for 80% of referrals to be a sanction"
There are several answers to the question posed in 4 - viz:
If a person who is referred for a "lower-level" sanction, ie. a potential disallowance of benefit for 4 weeks for the first "failure" to 12 weeks for a second within 52 weeks, their payment will be "suspended" for the time it takes for the first decision to be made and any Mandatory Reconsideration procedures; if the sanction is imposed, the time on suspension will count towards it; if it isn't, the claimant gets benefit restored and backdated.
It may be worth continuing to sign on in those circumstances, even without payment; making a new claim involves a lot of aggravation, especially if there are other passported benefits; plus the new rules stipulate that at least the first 7 days will not be paid.
If a person is referred for an "intermediate-level" sanction, ie. anything from 4 to 12 weeks for any "failure" outstanding from an earlier claim (or attached to another person with whom a claimant now has a joint claim), the decision maker can "suspend" payment for 12 weeks if they think the claimant needs a period of time to demonstrate in a new or joint claim that they are a) serious about looking for work, and b) fully compliant with whatever it was they failed on last time.
It may be worth continuing to sign on in these circumstances too, for the same reasons as before.
BUT -
Once a "first failure" sanction/disallowance has been imposed, the claimant is at more risk of a "second failure". If their benefit has been disallowed, they are less likely to be able to comply with jobsearch requirements. A "second failure" within 52 weeks of the first will result in that sanction being applied to any new claim if the claimant signs off.
If the claimant has two adverse decisions already, they will get a "Higher-level" sanction if they have a third "failure" within 52 weeks.
In that situation, the claimant would have to sign on for some time and receive no benefits for the term of the existing sanctions, plus be at risk of a "Higher-level" if they fail once more - and that could mean no benefit for 3 years.
People who continue to sign on but get no benefit are also eligible for the Work Programme, Mandatory Work Activity, and all the daft schemes and whatnot that anyone on JSA for 6 months (and WRAG ESA claimants) are expected to comply with - and failure to do so will result in a sanction if they don't.
The "Higher-level" sanction, usually of 26 weeks, applies to people who are judged to have left their jobs voluntarily or lost their jobs through "misconduct" - and although that has applied since Major's time, the difference now is that if a claimant signs on for no JSA (some do, to get access to programmes and/or other benefits) they are still subject to sanctions and in their situation another "Higher-level" sanction within 52 weeks puts them on a 156-week disallowance.
People who are sanctioned for spurious reasons, people who get the same shit week in week out, are just going to give up.
What is the point of signing on and doing all the stupid things required, like doing workfare, if one little slip or an adviser needing to hit a target means a second or third sanction which will kick you off benefit for 3 years?
There was a case recently in Scotland in which a claimant who has found temporary work was signing off for a while; he was judged to have failed to do what he was supposed to have done and his last few weeks' benefit was sanctioned. 5 "failures" were cited, 5 jobs which the claimant was judged not to have applied for, and 5 sanction referrals were made.
When this chap finishes his temporary job, there is no point him signing on again because there remain 5 outstanding sanction referrals which may apply to any new claim he makes. The decision maker is not allowed to impose 5 sanctions at once; but out of 5 referrals, one of them will probably stick. So this guy would have to wait the standard 7 days before he can register a claim at all, then probably at least 4 weeks of signing on for zero benefit (probably longer if the figures are any indication) then one "failure" and he's out.
We know that since 2011, 1.9 Million people have been sanctioned. Last year alone, more than a million sanction referrals were made, and nearly 500,000 disallowances were imposed on about 350,000 people - so some had more than one disallowance.
Of the 1.9M, only 400,000 went into employment - so 1.6M people were without work or benefits for varying periods, and some of those will be on the intermediate or higher levels and thus under threat of or completely out of benefit for 3 years.
DWP doesn't know or care what happens to all those people. If they were claiming benefits, they are not people who are not working through choice. Whilst there are people who are "economically inactive" because they choose to be, there is no evidence to suggest that this group of people have found work. People who move to other benefits are not included in the figures because DWP knows where they are and they counted in other cohorts.
Sanctioned people disappear because there is nowhere for them to go. If they don't find work or claim another benefit, they're lost to the system. I suspect that they feel it is pointless to engage with it.
I am also convinced that this is deliberate - the new sanctions regime is set up in a way that guarantees an increasing number of people will be locked out of JSA completely for years at a time. The longer you sign on, the greater the risk of this happening.
Recent figures show that someone claiming JSA for 6 months is likely to be sanctioned at least once; longer than a year on JSA and they will be sanctioned at least twice - that means that those who sign on for more than a year are more likely than not to be given a "Higher-level" sanction at some point.
Work Programme providers can refer a case directly to a decision maker now. A claimant on the WP is 5 times more likely to get a sanction than they are to find a job; those who stay for the full 2 years (so far, that's more than 800,000 people) and don't find work go on to the new Help To Work scheme which has draconian conditions, so they are even more likely to get a third and thus 3-year sanction.
This is what the sanctions system is for. If people won't get off benefits, job or not, they'll be taken off.
The JSA claimant count is dropping - and this is the main reason why.
thing.
Figure 3: Public Sector net debt, financial year
