Tory government suppressed report showing benefit sanctions stop people getting work
Some of us have been saying for years that sanctions on benefit claimants are no damned good. Now we have proof.
The really damning information attached to the report’s publication is the fact that the government suppressed it for years until it was forced out with a Freedom of Information request.
(This Writer is familiar with the use of FoI to force the Department for Work and Pensions to release information – I spent two years campaigning to get damning information released on the number of people who had died after being denied sickness benefits, remember.)
The article, and Samuel Miller’s comments, speak for themselves.
Experts said it was shocking that the government had clear evidence of the negative effects of sanctions for more than two years and had actively sought to keep the findings under wraps while overseeing a huge rise in the numbers of sanctions on universal credit claimants.
— Samuel Miller (@Hephaestus7) April 7, 2023
force the DWP to release the report.
— Samuel Miller (@Hephaestus7) April 7, 2023
Here’s the government report:
The Impact of Benefit Sanctions on Employment Outcomes: draft report – https://t.co/uUOnQfCxBr https://t.co/Ural6kjmpk
— Samuel Miller (@Hephaestus7) April 6, 2023
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The report shows the negative effect of sanctions on those sanctioned, in reducing both their total earned income and their wages from employment. But (quote)
“The relatively small negative financial effect reported for those sanctioned should be balanced against the likely positive deterrent effect that the sanction regime introduces by incentivising claimant attendance, an effect which will be experienced by all claimants… , regardless of whether they are sanctioned.”
So the lasting detrimental effects on sanctioned claimants is seen as positively encouraging all claimants to submit to the harsh disciplinary regime.
It’s just that there is no actual evidence in the report that it does what they say! So the report is an exercise in justifying cruelty for the sake of a cynical ideology. They withheld the report because they could not demonstrate any so-called ‘positive’ effect.
And far from a “relatively small financial effect” on the sanctioned, this strategy damages peoples’ lives and livelihoods with no proof at all that it saves the State even a single penny.