ESA Sanctions Rise By 580% by samedifference1
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ESA Sanctions Rise By 580%
by samedifference1
The coalition’s war against sick and disabled claimants
is becoming ever more intense. The latest statistics show that
sanctions against employment and support allowance (ESA) claimants have
risen from 1,104 in the month of March 2103 to 7507 in March 2014, an
increase of 580%.
The
massive increase in sanctions is even more marked when looking just at
the first three months of 2014, the most recent dates for which
statistics are available:
January 3,750
February 4,698
March 7,507
The figures show that sanctions against the sick and disabled have doubled in the space of just three months.
Sanctions
are only applied to claimants in the work-related activity group of ESA
and the vast majority are aimed at sick and disabled claimants who have
been forced onto the work programme and then failed to carry out a
mandatory work-related activity.
In
March 2014 7,108 claimants were sanctioned for failure to participate
in work-related activity and 395 for failure to attend an interview.
Very
often the reason for failure to participate in work-related activity is
that the claimant was too unwell to carry out the activity or had not
had it clearly explained in the first place. More than 60% of ESA
claimants who are sanctioned have a mental health condition or learning
difficulty.
There
has been no explanation from the DWP for this massive rise in
sanctions, but given that sanctions against ESA claimants are an easy
way to cut benefits costs when the coalition is already in danger of
breaching its self-imposed welfare cap, it’s not hard to understand what
is driving the increase.
