Universal Credit sanctions multiply 15-fold after face-to-face meetings resume

Last Updated: November 25, 2021By Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sanctions return: and it seems DWP officers are trying to make up for the sanctions they couldn’t impose during the Covid-19 lockdowns.

The Department for Work and Pensions is back to its old tricks.

Benefit sanctions were suspended during the Covid-19 lockdowns – mostly due to the inability of hired-gun assessors from private firms to hold face-to-face interviews where they could find fault with claimants.

Those days are over.

Face-to-face interviews resumed in March and, in just four months, sanctions multiplied more than 15 times from what was a very high starting number.

They rose from 960 in March to a massive 15,929 in July. The figure now is probably horrifying; DWP officers have a lot of ground to make up.

And where I state “make up”, be assured that there’s an intentional double entendre in those words. The grounds for sanction are more likely to be fabricated than genuine, in This Writer’s opinion.

Remember: the total amount of benefit fraud is carried out by fewer than two per cent of claimants.

Remember also that Jodey Whiting was sanctioned for failing to attend an interview about her disability benefit. She was unable to be at the interview because she was in hospital with a brain cyst.

She also had an incurable condition that could only worsen, so the interview should only have been about whether she deserved higher payments. DWP officers, of course, decided to stop all her benefit payments. End result: she died.

The current wheeze is to sanction people who can’t attend interviews because they are self-isolating with Covid-19.

Tory government ministers have been warned time and time again that their officers’ decisions are causing deaths, and have claimed that “lessons have been learned”.

It can only be true if they were trying to learn how to force more people to their deaths.

Source: UC sanctions rocket 15-fold in four months

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4 Comments

  1. The Toffee (597) November 26, 2021 at 12:37 pm - Reply

    No surprise.

    Think about that next time youre thinking of writing a piece in support of the PCS union that the jobcentre capos are members of.

    • Mike Sivier November 26, 2021 at 3:52 pm - Reply

      When have I ever written a piece in support of a union, for encouraging its members to harm other people?

  2. Jeffrey Davies November 26, 2021 at 4:14 pm - Reply

    Aktion t4 rolling along with out much of a ado walking past my local JCP DWP offices notice on door please do not come in if you think you have sniffles cold or COVID remember you could infect our work force hmmm sieg heil

  3. Jeffrey Davies November 26, 2021 at 4:16 pm - Reply

    Ps toffee you barking up the wrong tree Mike helps not hinders

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