1,000 signatures reached
To: Department of Works and Pensions
Review of Benefit Sanction Procedures
Initiate an immediate, transparent and thorough review of the Job Centre procedures currently in place which implement so-called 'Benefit Sanctions'. The objective of the review should be to ensure that vulnerable people are not at risk of having their benefits withdrawn unfairly and without sufficiently good reason.
Why is this important?
Anyone listening to the recent BBC Radio 4 File On Four's episode entitled 'Benefit Sanctions' will have been shocked at reports that Benefit Sanctions, i.e. the withdrawal of state benefits, a procedure designed to discourage benefit claimants from avoiding realistic job opportunities, are often being imposed on claimants who are suffering genuinely debilitating, often chronic, physical and mental disabilities. These sanctions invariably entail an automatic withdrawal of benefits without a fair trial. The DWP guidance about hardship payments actually officially accepts hunger and a deterioration in health as an inevitable consequence of a sanction.
On a personal note, a friend who manages a local homeless drop-in centre which, among other things, provides hot food, informs me that staff there are seeing a marked increase in the number of service users who are suffering from such conditions as clinical depression, schizophrenia and a whole range of physical disorders and who have had their benefits withdrawn for reasons which, considering their state of health, are neither fair nor reasonable. This is often leaving them penniless, unable to buy food and there have been more and more cases where these people are losing their accommodation and having to sleep rough. The impact on the mental health as well as the physical condition of those affected is often disastrous. This is happening nationally. These people often have little or no ability, let alone opportunity to defend themselves effectively against these sanction decisions and the result is very real suffering. Sometimes the lives of the most vulnerable are actually being put at risk.
It is the mark of a decent society that we help and support those genuinely unable to look after themselves. We call on the Department of Works and Pensions to put a stop to this compassionless injustice.
On a personal note, a friend who manages a local homeless drop-in centre which, among other things, provides hot food, informs me that staff there are seeing a marked increase in the number of service users who are suffering from such conditions as clinical depression, schizophrenia and a whole range of physical disorders and who have had their benefits withdrawn for reasons which, considering their state of health, are neither fair nor reasonable. This is often leaving them penniless, unable to buy food and there have been more and more cases where these people are losing their accommodation and having to sleep rough. The impact on the mental health as well as the physical condition of those affected is often disastrous. This is happening nationally. These people often have little or no ability, let alone opportunity to defend themselves effectively against these sanction decisions and the result is very real suffering. Sometimes the lives of the most vulnerable are actually being put at risk.
It is the mark of a decent society that we help and support those genuinely unable to look after themselves. We call on the Department of Works and Pensions to put a stop to this compassionless injustice.
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