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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Access to justice and advice sector issues  →  Thread

DWP in work progression trial and sanctions

GWRS adviser
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Welfare Rights Service, Greenwich Council, London

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Total Posts: 211

Joined: 8 August 2012

https://www.rightsnet.org.uk/welfare-rights/news/item/Evaluation-of-universal-credit-in-work-progession-trial-finds-no-clear-evi

The impact assessment says that the more ‘support’ that people were provided with the more likely they were to be sanctioned.

The report states:
“There is no evidence of different outcomes depending on reported experience of sanctions. When looking at reported changes in hours worked and earnings between wave one and wave two, there was no difference between participants who said their UC had been stopped or reduced and other participants.”

This is DWP commissioned research showing that sanctions do not lead to better outcomes for claimants. 

Sanctions have been referred to as the only welfare reform that has not yet been evaluated: https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/work-and-pensions-committee/news-parliament-2017/benefit-sanctions-evidence17-19/

However, the report goes on…

“As part of the analysis, administrative data on sanctions was compared with the answers given by survey respondents. The proportion of claimants recorded as sanctioned in the administrative data was two per cent, much lower than the proportion of claimants in the survey who said their benefit had been stopped
or reduced.

These findings suggest either that claimants thought they had been sanctioned when this was not the case; had misinterpreted fluctuations in the amount of UC received as a sanction; or were thinking about sanctions in previous claims. It is also possible that claimants may have had their benefit stopped temporarily, delayed, or reduced for a
reason other than a sanction.”

So I guess the best spin that DWP could place onto this is that any potential positive impact that sanctions may or may not have is being undermined by the administrative failures of DWP.

Benny Fitzpatrick
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Welfare Rights Officer, Southway Housing Trust, Manchester

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Joined: 2 June 2015

“The impact assessment says that the more ‘support’ that people were provided with the more likely they were to be sanctioned.”

Priceless!