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Tag Archives: benefit sanctions

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

Back 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.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged department of work and pensions, polly toynbee and the guardian | 27 Comments

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