Joseph Rowntree Foundation warns of dangers of benefit sanctions

A review of benefit sanctions by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has highlighted the potential negative effects of sanctions in welfare reforms and warned that policy makers should carefully consider the outcomes before extending sanctions.

The report concludes that “policy-makers continue to justify extending sanction-backed conditionality on moral grounds while taking an ambivalent attitude to the evidence”.

It shows that:

• “Disadvantaged claimants facing multiple barriers to work were at higher risk of sanctions”

• Those most vulnerable to sanctions are likely to be the most disadvantaged by them

• “Sanctions have...impacted unfavourably on crime rates”

• Benefit claimants tend to have demonstrated low levels of awareness of sanctions. “Although people realised that penalties were part of the system, they rarely knew when penalties could be imposed or how they could be reversed.” This leads to sanctions ‘punishing’ people for a “lack of awareness rather than deliberate flouting of the rules for receiving benefits”

• Failure to attend or participate in services or programmes is more likely to be a “product of poor information and non-intentional behaviour such as forgetfulness” rather than “deliberate non-attendance or non-engagement”

• “[A]lthough the threat of sanctions may encourage participation, sanctions themselves do little to change motivation to work.”

These findings support our call to the Government to take a stepped approach to welfare, where conditions and sanctions are not applied until basic needs have been addressed, and the goal of employment has been adopted as part of the recovery process.