Benefit sanctions increasing poverty and pushing people into 'survival crime,' finds report

Benefit sanctions are largely ineffective and in some cases push people into poverty and crime, our major study has found.

The research found little evidence that benefit sanctions enhance people’s motivation to prepare for or enter paid work and, by contrast, routinely trigger profoundly negative personal, financial and health outcomes.

The findings, conducted by the WelCond project and led by led by the University of York, show that some people are pushed into destitution, survival crime and ill health as a result of welfare conditionality.

Advocates of benefit sanctions say they are an effective way of weaning people off benefits and into paid work or addressing anti-social behaviour.

But the study reveals that the mandatory training and support is often too generic, of poor quality and largely ineffective in enabling people to enter and sustain paid work.

The findings are based on repeat longitudinal interviews undertaken with 339 people in England and Scotland and drawn from nine policy areas, including Universal Credit, disabled people, migrants, lone parents, offenders and homeless people.

WelCond director Professor Peter Dwyer, from the University of York’s Department of Social Policy and Social Work, said the review revealed that in the majority of cases, welfare conditionality didn’t work as intended.

He continued: “We have evidence it has increased poverty and pushed some people into survival crime.

"What also became apparent was people were focusing on meeting the conditions of their benefit claim and that became their job – it is totally counter-productive.

“You are just making people do things to meet the conditions of the claim rather than getting them into work.”

Mr Dwyer accused successive governments of using welfare conditionality and the “carrot and stick” it implies to promote positive behaviour change.

“Our review has shown it is out of kilter, with the idea of sanctioning people to the fore. It is more stick, very little carrot and much of the support is ineffective,” he added.

The benefit sanctions system has long been fiercely criticised for causing hardship and depression, often on flimsy evidence of wrongdoing – and with little proof that they work.

Typically, if conditions are not met, benefits are docked for four weeks, which can mean a loss of £300 for a claimant over the age of 25 – but a sanction can last for three months, or even a year.

In a damning report in 2016, the National Audit Office castigated the DWP for failing to monitor people whose benefits had been docked and suggested the system cost more money than it saved.

A DWP spokesperson said: “Our research shows that over 70% of JSA claimants say sanctions make it more likely they will comply with reasonable and agreed requirements, and it is understandable that people meet certain expectations in return for benefits.

“We tailor requirements to individual cases and sanctions are only used in a very small percentage of cases when people fail to meet their agreed requirements set out in their Claimant Commitment.”