Almost £140 million in bonuses for DWP staff – for sanctioning people off benefits?
Gosh – nearly £140 million in bonuses to DWP staff in three years is pretty impressive. What did those people do to deserve that cash?
Did they…
Run a ‘Space Invaders Challenge’ (whatever that is) to get Employment and Support Allowance claimants off their books, as staff at Yardley Job Centre did?
![DWP insist they do not set targets for getting people off ESA [Image: Reuters].](https://voxpoliticalonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/160404jobcentrespaceinvaders.jpg)
[Image: Reuters].
Or did they…
Award themselves ‘sheriff stars’ for hitting sanction targets?
According to The Void, Job Centres were being awarded special ‘sheriff stars’ for meeting sanction targets. Link: http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2014/12/21/sandra-gives-the-game-away-jobcentres-given-sheriffs-stars-for-hitting-benefit-sanction-targets/
I know – the DWP insists that it has no targets for sanctions, even after it has been presented with photographic proof, like the above.
Or did they do even worse things that have yet to be made public?
For a current example of the way Job Centres treat benefit claimants, see: Teen committed suicide after being ‘belittled’ by Job Centre staff
Over the last three years, the Department for Work and Pensions has handed out £139.9 million in bonuses to its staff – £124.37 million of which has gone to Senior Civil servants.
In the year ending April 2015, the DWP paid out £42.1 million, slightly less than the year before when bonuses totalled £46.5 million.
The DWP has insisted that bonuses are only paid to employees whose work is consistently good or outstanding.
Responding to a written question from Andrew Gwynne MP, Work and Pensions Minister Justin Tomlinson said: “In line with Civil Service pay guidance, DWP rewards employees for their performance through either end of year non-consolidated payments and/or in-year payments. In year payments are limited to 0.23 per cent of the total DWP paybill.
“Employees who have attained agreed performance levels as part of their performance review may receive an end of year non-consolidated payment based on their grade and end of year performance marking. End of year payments are limited to 1.9 per cent of the total DWP paybill”
Source: DWP staff received almost £140 million in bonuses over the last three years | The Independent
Note: The figures relate to the three years up to late 2015. Who knows how much has been handed out to DWP staff since then?
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Pretty close to being evil
The staff at jobcentres should lower there heads in shame,there taking blood money from the poor,people are committing suicide,children are going without,elderly people can’t afford to heat there homes,but as long as the staff at the jobecentres are ok,they go on strike for what reason,is it because there not making enough people to commit suicide so the can claim that they hav got a person off benifits,I hope they all hav a horrible Christmas and explain to there family’s that they take blood money and use it to feed there own families,or just sack them like in Scotland and make them go through the system
This is just pure Evil. So sad.
more lies of the dwp but then it wasnt or is about saving monies has it only go to their mates companies were it trickles back to their drubby hands
The vast majority of civil servants working in DWP earn on average just over £8.00 per hour. They have had derisory annual pay rises in the last 8 years to get to that figure. As DWP have stated there are NO targets for imposing sanctions but the antics of the reported JCP offices awarding badges etc is totally unethical but NOT indicative of the DWP as a whole. DWP staff are hard working people who often work with ever increasing workloads so deserve their annual non consolidated bonus which is now being phased out. Higher pay awards are now being made over the next 4 years as part of a new Employee Deal. These pay rises will only bring staff in line with what they should already should be receiving following the previous derisory pay increases. The average DWP worker will still earn considerably less than those in the private sector and less than other workers in other Government departments.
The DWP says there are no targets for awarding sanctions, but then we discover all these schemes at Job Centres across the country, with awards for people meeting targets for awarding sanctions.
What do we believe? The DWP? Or the evidence before us?
We believe the evidence. There are – or certainly were – sanction targets.
Sorry but even £8 per hour is still a job which others do not have the luxury especially if bonus payments are part of the package. They should add the bonus payouts as incentives for staff to act like humans not the Cons hit men and women.
Nearly half of the allegations for imposing sanctions are chucked out leaving the claimants in financial and social difficulty which should bring shame on the staff involved. But hey this is Government stuff good guys are shown the door quickly only ex SS need apply.
U must live on another planet? Or worse work for DWP (STAR WINNER)
Normally I would of asked ‘Sean’ what planet he was living on, but in this case I wont.
He will more than likely either work for the DWP himself or be linked in some way to the DWP, to come out with statements like that.
There is OVERWHELMING evidence that sanctions targets DO exist, so ‘Sean’ please don’t lie about it!
why isn’t the taxpayers alliance saying something about this mis- use of taxpayer’s money in Parliament ?
Dirty b**stards make me sick.they want us to beg scrounge for anything we worked for or entitled to where is this going to end
Why don’t you and most of the other contributors to this thread take the time and trouble to check up on how the performance pay is calculated – try reading the old article that Sivier has unearthed and lınks to hıs spiel. It ıs obvious that the majority haven’t got a clue and are making totally unjustified assumptions.
I knew they got a bonus for sanctioning but had no idea just how much they are pocketing to stop claimants actually getting desperately needed help.
Well you vote for the Tories
What the hell did you expect !
Where have you been since 1979 ?
Very few people on this site vote Tory, I think.
That said, you are right that the people at large need to understand the consequences of their actions in the ballot booth.
“End of year payments are limited to 1.9 per cent of the total DWP paybill”
Oh, well that’s alright then! How much of taxpayers’ money actually gets to the
“beneficiaries’ – a person or group that receives benefit ?
Typical dwp getting tgeir bonuses paid from the money stolen in unlawfulbsanctions some the claimants knew nothing about otgers because they had heart attacks panic attacks anxiety attacks halfway through assessments some sent letters who were blind and the dwp forgot to send letters in braille these evil people got their bonus payments because they killed hundreds and increased food banks SHAME ON YOU TORY GOVERMENT YOU ARE NOT FIT TO LOOK AFTER OUR COUNTRY YOU CANT EVEN LOOK AFTER ITS MOST NEEDY PEOPLE YOU THINK ONLY OF YOURSELVES
“Forgot”?
“The DWP has insisted that bonuses are only paid to employees whose work is consistently good or outstanding….. at killing off as many vulnerable people as possible!”
FTFY
Ta.
Typical hypocrites, people commit suicide, because you greedy tossers do this to people, you are the ones that should be jailed and taken the money from you. Sooo wrong . bet Theresa may knows and will do nothing about it. Hmm . just like all the other lying tories, mp’s etc.
Why do the DWP employees get bonuses like the bankers. Are their salaries not enough for them? Who decided to give these civil servants bonuses? It must be the government advisors, recruited at great expense (many of whom are bankers,) who introduced this disgraceful policy, which cost £140 million a year. Take from the poor and give to the rich is what passes for wisdom in the UK today.
They should choke on there food when innocent people and children are starving and losing there homes
Ofcourse they stop genuine people getting benefits to award themselves , but they don’t do anything about the fraudsters who rob the government, claiming benefits by false means.and yet DWP TARGET The ones who need it.so shameful.looks like they are not recognising genuine people, these days if a disabled person looks presentable outwardly despite the pain they are enduring inwardly the assessors DWP employ who are not doctors just presume these disabled persons are ok there is nothing wrong with them.does DWP Expect disabled peopke to look lkie beggars.I M sorry I have to say because I have gone through this personally.Shame on the capital assessors to make their own judgement.
The Independent article linked above is over a year old.
From the article: “The figures relate to the three years up to late 2015. Who knows how much has been handed out to DWP staff since then?”
PENSION CREDIT 60 NOW. https://www.facebook.com/groups/660199184128266/
The government’s own audit office has said sanctions cost £150m each year in admin costs than they save by benefit loss into starvation and freezing for all ages. The admin itself costs £250m each and every year. With these bonus’ on top, then the Jobcentre system itself needs to be abolished, never mind sanctions and assessments into starvation. Jobcentres now drive the old into starvation, by denying now Pension Credit at age 60 for men since this year, and to women from age 60 since 2013. Least chance of getting a new job and could have no other income or just a tiny works pension, that gets little or no annual rise. Government ignored the Labour costed option to get pension credit back to the 1995 act timetable for 1950s born ladies denied state pension from 60 til 66 since 2013 put forward to the Autumn Statement. Pension Credit is nothing at all to do with pension age, but was a minimum pensioner income guarantee, so had no business in being risen in age qualification, and is not a benefit and is not reliant at all on any National Insurance record. UK has highest winter excess deaths in Europe, that now include those below 64 more and more than in previous years.
Are they really job centres any more?? What jobs? They are now more like a very expensive triarge centre to keep the benefits budget as low as possible and maybe knock a few claimants off their list forever by their vindicitive profit motivated actions.
What a disgrace – baby boomer women’s pension stolen off them after paying NI for 40 years
your paypal donate button isn’t working
Yes it is. If you had trouble it was probably a glitch at either end. Give it another go?
Why give staff the money from DWP surely it can go back into DWP DWP us clearly sanctioning people just to get there bonus when they already have a job and getting paid shamefully system DWP operate in
This is nothing more than blood money, payment for causing torment to the innocent under government mandate!
I sent to Duncan -Smith to his constituency office copies of his staffs actions. They threatened a 90 year old widow, they claimed in their statement to the court (Walsall) that she had defrauded the state, she had moved a new partner in, she had failed to inform the DWP of her change of circumstances, all bloody lies.
Every time i requested information they the DWP refused to reply, after nearly 2 years i contacted Walsall court myself demanding a court date. We were given one for December 2012. Before going into the court room the usher asked if i had any other evidence for the judge to look at. I gave her two copies of a letter and documents i had faxed to the DWP in 2005.
I watched the usher take one copy to the judges room and handed a copy to DWP solicitors. The DWP solicitors read the letter then ran out of the court, we were called in early and told by the judge the DWP were not attending the hearing. He simply threw out their claim as shown on his judgment and stated if the DWP tried to appeal he would throw that out as well.
I sent copies of the DWP statement and the judges orders to Duncan-Smith to his constituency office and a copy to his DWP office requesting he explain the false statement and false accusations. Nothing in reply.
I sent copies to Met Commissioner Hogan-Howe requesting he arrest Smith and DWP members for knowingly making false statements and entering them into court. Hogan- Howe eventually replied (his letter had no contact phone number, no email number, and no reference number). In this letter Hogan-Howe admitted in his letter that not only had he lost all of my documents, but he had also lost the record file and the file number of my documents.He also deliberately smeared me by stating i was trying to ruin good peoples names:)) I have sent a copy of this letter to others who have been told their documents have been lost.
Unbelievable can’t put it in to words how disrgusting this is
Shocking.disgraceful . Shameful how can they sleep at night knowing vulnerable people have taken their own life .and put people in poverty for the sake of a 40 pieces of silver .and shame on the government for introducing such a thing
I Daniel Blake !!
Nasty and disgusting how they hire these low life job centre staff with no conscience to con and cajole sick people back to work.
Absolutely despicable!
They’ve been doing this since the tories got back in in 2010, another one of their evil schemes they put into place to inflict misery, pain and suffering on the poor and sick, cull as many as you can and you get a nice, fat, rich, Bruceie bonus, Hitler would be proud of his SS men and women in suits!