Sanctions can be applied if you fail to meet the ‘work-related conditions’ that apply in your case. These failures are called ‘sanctionable failures.’ There are four different types of sanction: lowest, low, medium and higher. In each case, benefits can be reduced over varying lengths of time.
Sanctions can subject claimants to extreme hardship, including food bank use, poor mental and physical health and financial debt.
Black and minority ethnic benefit claimants are disproportionately likely to be hit with universal credit sanctions according to official statistics unveiled for the first time.
Black universal credit claimants were 58% more likely to be sanctioned than white claimants, mixed ethnic groups were 72% more likely and Asians were 5% more likely, according to the figures published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
Timi Okawa, the chief executive of the civil rights charity Black Equity Organisation, said: “These figures confirm what many have long suspected – that the welfare system disproportionately penalises black and ethnic minority communities.”
These disparities show clear evidence of structural racism, and this level of racial discrimination prevalent in jobcentres cannot be swept under the rug.
Caroline Selman, a researcher for the Public Law Project charity, which analysed the statistics, said. “The public needs to know whether [sanctions] decisions are being made fairly and the DWP needs to assess any potential for discrimination in its sanctions process so that it can be rooted out.”
DR UK strongly agrees – publishing this data is not enough and the DWP must investigate why the recorded disparity exists.
An equality impact assessment of universal credit in 2011 flagged up the risk that minority ethnic claimants would be disproportionately affected by sanctions.
Until now, however, the DWP has not considered the level of universal credit ethnicity data available robust enough for publication.
The data covers the year to the end of April, when for the first time the number of universal credit claimants self-reporting their ethnicity on their claim form rose above 70% – the minimum baseline needed to underpin any analysis.
There are about 7 million universal credit claimants in the UK.
In 2023-24, just under 440,000 universal credit claimants were sanctioned. Annual rates of benefit sanctions hit a high of 1 million in 2013 but dropped after a public outcry over widespread reports of abusive and cruel sanctions practices by jobcentre officials.
Ken Butler DR UK’s Welfare Rights and Policy Adviser said: “There has been no research that finds that the conditionality and sanctions regime helps Disabled people.
“The Work and Pensions Committee of MPs found two years ago that not only is there no evidence that the DWP’s benefit conditionality sanctions system works but that “worse, it is harmful and counterproductive.”
“The Public Law Project has previously warned that the system for challenging benefit sanctions “poses significant harm to the health, finances, and well-being of claimants”
DR UK wants an end to the sanctions system.
“We want a system that fully supports all Disabled people to live with independence and dignity, whilst on benefits. Disabled people who can’t work must be given full support.
Disabled people who want to work should be given the personalised and flexible support they need to enter work, and those acquiring impairments and health conditions whilst at work, should be supported to retain their jobs.
We want a benefits system where Disabled people have rights and where we are not subjected to the fear of a sanction leading to accepting unreasonable or harmful work-related demands.
Source and for more information: Benefit sanctions more likely for minority ethnic claimants, UK data shows available from theguardian.com/society.
For more information see our Sanctions factsheet.
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Sanctions ineffective as a way of getting people into jobs or to work more hours, finds suppressed DWP report New Z2K Report Security Not Sanctions: Making Universal Credit Work For Seriously Ill And Disabled People