More than half of ESA claimants sanctioned between April 2014 and March 2015 had mental health problems

Another post from me about benefit safeguards…

Very interesting FOI here: http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/welfare-rights/news/item/more-than-half-of-esa-claimants-sanctioned-between-april-2014-and-march-201

What will be particularly interesting will be to compare these figures with the next installment of these figures as the safeguarding procedures for Work Programme Providers were made explicit in their guidance from May 2015 (though I would have argued that they existed but were not often followed prior to that date).  The figures could be an indication of whether the safeguarding guidance has had any impact.

Within the figures for the April 15 - March 16 figures it will also be interesting to see if there is a difference between the proportion of people with mental health problems sanctioned between May 15 - Nov 15 compared to Nov 15 - March 16.  The Work Programme Provider safeguards guidance was significantly watered down in November 2015.  I have complained about this at length here: http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/9051/