Benefit sanctions: Britain’s secret penal system – Dr David Webster | Politics and Insights

Last Updated: October 24, 2015By

Benefits claimants are subjected to an ‘amateurish, secret penal system which is more severe than the mainstream judicial system’, writes Dr David Webster of the University of Glasgow.
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Few people know that the number of financial penalties (‘sanctions’) imposed on benefit claimants by the Department of Work and Pensions now exceeds the number of fines imposed by the courts.

In Great Britain in 2013, there were 1,046,398 sanctions on Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants, 32,128 on Employment and Support Allowance claimants, and approximately 44,000 on lone parent recipients of Income Support. By contrast, Magistrates’ and Sheriff courts imposed a total of only 849,000 fines.

Sanctioned benefit claimants are treated much worse than those fined in the courts. The scale of penalties is more severe (£286.80 – £11,185.20 compared to £200 – £10,000).

Most sanctions are applied to poor people and involve total loss of benefit income.

Although there is a system of discretionary ‘hardship payments’, claimants are often reduced to hunger and destitution by the ban on application for the first two weeks and by lack of information about the payments and the complexity of the application process. The hardship payment system itself is designed to clean people out of resources; all savings or other sources of assistance must be used up before help is given.

Decisions on guilt are made in secret by officials who have no independent responsibility to act lawfully; since the Social Security Act 1998 they have been mere agents of the Secretary of State.

These officials are currently subject to constant management pressure to maximise penalties, and as in any secret system there is a lot of error, misconduct, dishonesty and abuse.

Source: Benefit sanctions: Britain’s secret penal system – Dr David Webster | Politics and Insights – and you are strongly encouraged to read the rest of the article and pass it on.

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7 Comments

  1. Joanna October 25, 2015 at 1:31 am - Reply

    It isn’t Great Britain any more Mike, on many levels!!!!

  2. Paul C. Dickie October 25, 2015 at 8:51 am - Reply

    Sanctions, therefore, contravene the fundamental human right to a fair trial, under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights: the determination of culpability is not held in public, the “judge” is not independent, there is no presumption of innocence, the accused is not able to confront the evidence and there is no way for the claimant to defend himself / herself against the allegations.

    Couldn’t a claimant, using a legal team working pro bono, take the Secretary of State to court in a judicial review and, if needs be, to take the matter to the ECHR?

    • Brian October 25, 2015 at 11:02 am - Reply

      That would indeed be poetic.

    • yona October 25, 2015 at 11:33 am - Reply

      Cant afford to top up salary packets all the time

      • Mike Sivier October 25, 2015 at 11:55 am - Reply

        They seem to manage to top up executive salaries just as much as they like.

  3. amnesiaclinic October 25, 2015 at 11:34 am - Reply

    This is brilliant! We need to stand up to the bullying that underlies this unjust nonsense that has been creeping up in the last 25 years.

    I think armed with these statistics we can challenge every decision made. We need to tackle our MP’s of every colour and shade and get this stopped.

    Now.

  4. Louis Kasatkin October 25, 2015 at 4:20 pm - Reply

    Check out my successful JSA Sanctions Appeal on fb at #DansLaMerde.

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