UnemployedNet and Respect for the Unemployed and Benefit Claimants Response
Deadline: 10th January 2014
Respond to: sanctions.review2013@dwp.gsi.gov.uk
UnemployedNet and Respect for the Unemployed and Benefit Claimants work to support and represent workless people and other claimants online and through social media.
The two organisations issued a call for responses to unemployed users when the Oakley review was announced, and gathered these through Facebook, email and other sources, and the responses form the basis of this document.
Scope of request
It is understood that the review relates only to the statutory requirement to evaluate the quality of information provision to jobseekers on sanctions. However, this is wholly inadequate to the needs of the unemployed.
Sanctions figures were finally released by the government in November this year showing that the number of referrals for sanctions had risen by 45% and the number of adverse decisions had gone up by 29% since 2011. A number of whistleblowers made the news in 2013 (including this one as recently as December) bringing information about sanction targets, targeting of vulnerable people who had language issues or mental health problems, financial bonuses and disciplinary processes for jobcentre advisors linked to the number of sanctions handed out, and even fraudulent alteration of records, all apparently with the aim of reducing claimant headcount.
It is imperative that the scope of the review is widened to include all aspects of sanctions, including targets (whether imposed directly from politicians or de facto targets decided locally as a response to pressure applied from the top), an investigation into multiple allegations of fraudulent activity by advisors (including changing files without authorisation, and a report by UnemployedNet that jobseekers have been made to sign blank Jobseekers’ Agreements) that appear to be designed to trap claimants into sanctions, and checks on the many reports (some reported in the national press or to MPs or Councillors and carried on the Stupid Sanctions Tumblr account) of sanctions made for missing an appointment that wasn’t made, or for attending a job interview on a signing-on day, or for attending a funeral, or for being ill.
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, has spoken of trying to make the experience of unemployment more like work, including moving to monthly budgeting and a 35-hour jobseeking week for those on benefits. An employer that tried to impose a one-month pay fine on any worker who failed to attend a single meeting, or who took an unannounced day off to attend a funeral, or took an unannounced sick day, would fall foul of an employment tribunal, and we urge the enquiry to recommend the same reasonable standards are applied to claimants.
Sanctions appear to have moved from being a last resort to a first line of attack in trying to reduce claimant count. Given the appalling poverty created, this is entirely unacceptable.
Response
Respondents to the UnemployedNet and Respect for the Unemployed and Benefit Claimants call for information were overwhelmingly angry about the sanctions they had received. The majority of responses believed that the sanctioning system had been influenced politically, and pointed the finger at the government for the expansion in penalties rather than jobcentre staff.
The issues experienced fell into two main categories:
1) Sanctions handed out for reasons not explained or understood
2) Sanctions handed out without justification
Respondents provided examples of both, with many stating that they simply did not know why they had been sanctioned, and having little faith in the review system which appears to use the ‘guilty until proven innocent’ system rejected elsewhere in UK law.
Along with many examples of sanctions handed out for missing a single appointment, or not having done enough to find work, all of which were disputed, there were some more extreme examples:
- A heterosexual woman who shared a flat with a female friend was accused of living with her lesbian lover and sanctioned despite no apparent evidence. She applied for a crisis loan while appealing (eventually successfully) but was told initially that she wasn’t eligible and should go to an online lender, then told she was, than that she wasn’t, before finding work and gratefully dropping out of the JSA system;
- A woman was told by her advisor to apply for a job, made the application but was sanctioned because her advisor had independently decided that she had applied for it outside an appropriate period;
- A man who was earning £5 per week but did not declare it due to a mental health problem was sanctioned despite this being an allowable disregard;
- A man sanctioned despite applying for a sufficient number of jobs because he had not allowed his advisor access to their Universal Jobmatch account despite it being made clear in a DWP ruling that this is not mandatory.
The increase in sanctions appears to have only been possible due to a lowering of the threshold at which they are implemented. The examples provided above suggest that this threshold is now pitched at a level that scoops up more committed jobseekers who are doing everything by the book than those who are gaming the system.
Whistleblowers, including one who revealed details to The Guardian and the work and pensions select committee in December 2013, have showed that pressure from management to ramp up the number of sanctions has fed through into worse and worse conditions for jobseekers, and created more and more innocent victims.
The appeals process is seen as hugely inadequate for such a damaging intervention. Waiting weeks or months for a sanction decision to be overturned is not appropriate when those suffering with no income are left destitute in the meantime.
Our respondents saw some tension between the two parts of jobcentre advisors’ roles. A number of respondents made the point that the positive relationship needed for the jobseeking support role cannot be in place when combined with the sanctioning role, particularly in the ever-reducing time an advisor has with each claimant.
It is understood that there were efficiencies to be gained from joining together the Benefits Agency and Jobcentre to form Jobcentre Plus, but if this means advisors’ abilities to support the jobsearch function are compromised a separation must be made again.
The issue of how to deal with vulnerable people has been raised by respondents. The perception is that those with mental health or behavioural problems are being singled out as easy targets for sanctions, when a more understanding approach was more common in the past.
Testimonies
One ex-soldier who was injured while on active duty described having been threatened with sanction despite suffering from post traumatic stress disorder:
“I suffer ptsd and its getting me down they are putting so much pressure on me am at a loss what to do.”
A woman was never able to get to the bottom of why she was sanctioned:
“Got sanctioned and they never told me why, asked loads of times and wrote letters, useless.”
Another woman who received a sanction said both information and customer service were lacking:
“I rang them at least 8 maybe 9 times on this issue and its actually disgusting how some of the people you have to speak to on the phone have no respect for you what so ever one of the people I had the displeasure of speaking to actually put the phone down on me.”
A man pointed to the tension between the benefits role and jobsearch support role of advisors as being key as well as the absurdities that arise from trying to push sanctions too hard:
“Advisors are no help whatsoever. It's ridiculous that they can sanction you if you are late for an appointment because you are at an interview. And if you went to the appointment instead of the interview, they'd sanction you for that too.
“It's like saying you weren't available to find work because you attended a job interview.”
A woman wrote on behalf of her severely-depressed son that he “would be homeless and penniless” due to a sanction if it wasn’t for family support.
Conclusion
Sanctions are perhaps the single biggest issue facing unemployed claimants today. In the ten years from 2000-10, 3.58 million adverse decisions were made. From the beginning of 2011 to June 2013 – just two-and-a-half years – that number had grown to 5.5 million.
We appear to have sleepwalked into a situation in which sanctions have moved from being a punishment of last resort to a first-rank weapon in the war on unemployment, with jobseekers as their casualties.
This drastic change has been made with no evidence offered of increased need or a higher level of offence, no real scrutiny of the role they have played in making already-poor people destitute, and no real opportunity for unemployed people to influence policy in this area.
The explosion in sanction numbers, and the huge negative influence they have on people’s lives, means it is imperative that they are suspended immediately pending a full enquiry into their use. New policy needs to be developed in this area to ensure the current widespread misuse of sanctions is not repeated in the future, and unemployed people need to be given the opportunity to feed in to this development.
Prepared by:
Nick Stephenson