Tag Archives: benefit sanctions

Caron Lindsay

Benefits sanctions: what should happen when guidelines and reality are at odds with each other?

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 9th July 2014 - 10:25 am

Benefits-welfareBack in April, I wrote about how the overuse of benefits sanctions appeared to be at odds with the Department of Work and Pensions guidance which was actually quite reasonable and gave decision makers some flexibility to take things like poor mental health into consideration.

Both the use and the penalty for even a minor infringement of the rules have been dramatically increased in the last couple of years. It’s worth noting that the minimum period of benefit loss is now 4 weeks. Given that the maximum help you can get from a food bank is 3 days’ food, 3 times a year, you can just imagine how much incredible hardship this can cause. You would think that a decision maker would take very seriously the consequences  of imposing a sanction and only do it when the circumstances were clear cut.

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 27 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • David Blake
    Well worth subscribing....
  • David Blake
    I've never thought of us as a low tax party. If we need to do something and it requires additional taxation, then a higher tax is one of the ways to do it. I ...
  • Roland
    But what are "low taxes" other than just a sound-bite? With hindsight we can see focusing on "low-taxes" - like the tories have for many decades, has only re...
  • nigel hunter
    We cannot fund the needs of the people and country if we are a low tax party....
  • Jonathan Calder
    Do we want to be a low-tax party? It seems the leadership wants to fight the next election on that basis, but I detect no great enthusiasm for the idea among th...