UC sanctions: Journalist request

Request from Alice, a trainee journalist from the University of Sheffield who’s working on a written feature:

I’m looking into Universal Credit sanctions and the rate at which they are overturned after challenge and am looking at these figures from the DWP:

- At ‘decision review’ stage, 37% of cases resulted in a sanction being applied.
- At ‘mandatory reconsideration’ stage, 73% of decisions resulted in a sanction being applied.
- At ‘appeal’ stage, 73% of decisions resulted in a sanction being applied.

I’d be really interested in speaking to someone from the rightsnet community to find out a bit more about Universal Credit sanctions and what they can mean for people.

Please do let me know if you can help. I can be contacted at: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Many thanks in advance, Alice