Draconian benefit sanctions requires urgent action from the Scottish Government

Benefit sanctions are creating desperate destitution for tens of thousands when their benefits are removed. According to Scottish Government figures there was a 15.4% increase in Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) applied sanctions in Scotland in 2013-14, compared to the year earlier.¹

This is a humanitarian crisis and needs urgent action to end this human misery. Socialist Party Scotland is calling on the Scottish Government to allocate crisis grants to mitigate the impact of sanctions on benefit claimants. 

Draconian

At present all Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) and Work Related Activity Group Employment Support Allowance (ESA) claimants can be sanctioned. Sanctions are brutally draconian. The minimum sanction for a JSA claimant is the removal of one month’s benefit. The highest level of sanction for a JSA claimant is three years loss of benefit, this can be applied for a failure to carry out mandatory work activity. The system regards a 13 week JSA sanction (applicable if a job centre interview is missed more than once) of £941.20 as “low”. This penalty can be implemented as a claimant’s second sanction.

To qualify for income based ESA you need to be unwell enough not be immediately ready to work. However, a third “failure” to fulfil the DWP’s requirements will mean losing a month’s benefit of £404.60.

Statistical research commissioned by the Scottish government shows there is little positive relationship between getting people into work and the use of benefit sanctions. Professor David Webster in (The DWP’s JSA/ESA sanctions statistics release, 13 August 2014, 2014. p.7) has highlighted that the number of sanctions resulting from the Work Programme is considerably higher than the number of people obtaining jobs from the Work Programme.

In Scotland, 46,265 sanctions were applied between June 2011 and March 2014 because claimants failed to participate in the Work Programme. During the same period, 26,740 job outcomes resulted from the Work Programme.

The Westminster government makes the claim sanctions “aim to motivate claimants to take necessary action to find work”.

Austerity weapon

In reality the benefit sanction is a lethal austerity weapon in the almost total war being waged against the poorest, the sick and most vulnerable. It is a key tool in the attempt to dismantle the welfare state won by the struggles of the working class and poor. It’s based on the principle that benefits are only awarded to those who “deserve them” rather than a right to an income when the economy fails to provide work.

How can removing starvation level benefits from the poorest in society enhance their chance of finding a job?

Benefit sanctions are also a tool for attacking the conditions of Job Centre staff. The DWP frontline workforce in job centres has a history of taking action and winning victories against attacks on pay and pensions. Benefit sanctions are also used as a way to attack those behind the desk. DWP staff are pressured under the threat of disciplinary action into implementing as many sanctions as possible. Targets are not for getting people back into work but to save on the benefit bill.

The PCS trade union’s campaigning and compelling evidence of staff being threatened with disciplinary action if they did not carry out enough sanctions, brought before the Scottish Parliament’s Welfare Reform Committee, has played a critical role in raising awareness of this issue.

SNP politicians and candidates are also using the press and social media to call for those angered by benefit sanctions to vote them into Westminster to “stick up for the poorest”.

There is understandable rage at Labour’s refusal to condemn and come out for a scrapping of benefit sanctioning, sending a clear signal that they would continue with the Con-Dem war on benefit claimants. But could the SNP be doing more in Scotland to help those forced into desperation by sanctions?

Mitigation is possible

The SNP government has the financial mechanisms and funds to immediately mitigate the effects of benefit sanctions. Political will is needed not just to stand up for the poorest in words, but also in deeds.

The Scottish Government allocated £33 million in 2013-14 to the Scottish Welfare Fund (SWF) which allocates crisis grants and community care grants. These are then administered on a discretionary basis by local authorities. These grants partly replaced crisis loans which were previously administered by the DWP.

Originally benefit claimants were not able to claim crisis grants if they were sanctioned. However, the massive rise in sanctions and the proliferation in the number of food banks in Scotland has forced a rule change meaning these grants are now available to those sanctioned. The introduction of Universal Credit, where the current sanction regime will still apply, will mean an even more precarious existence for benefit claimants. The Scottish government must use its powers to defend benefit claimants from this brutal avalanche of austerity.

Socialist Party Scotland is calling on the Scottish Government to allocate crisis grants to mitigate the impact of sanctions on benefit claimants. The total annual cost of mitigating all benefit sanctions can be estimated as around £30-£40 million.

The figure is calculated by using the DWP’s figures for the number of JSA sanction decisions between 2012-14 and the Scottish governments figures for ESA sanctions (figures for ESA sanctions applied in Scotland are not publicly available so this figure may well be an underestimate). This overall figure is supported by statistics recent academic reports by Dr David Webster and this recent report by the PCS trade union http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/news_and_events/news_centre/index.cfm/cost-to-claimants-of-benefit-sanctions-rockets-by-3000.  

According to Scottish Government figures, during 2013/14, a total of £29.0 million was awarded through the Scottish Welfare Fund. This was only 88% of the £33 million budget. Around £4.3 million was carried forward to spend in 2014/15. Topping the SWF up to £70 million would cover the cost of mitigation for all benefit sanctions. The Scottish Government underspend in 2013/14 was £440 million. 

Rather than the voucher system that is often used, often with a referral to a food bank, the cash equivalent to sanctioned benefit should be available in a weekly payment from councils immediately, once a sanction is imposed by the DWP. Often when the DWP fail to inform councils that benefits have been stopped due to a sanction, housing benefit or local housing allowance (in the private sector) is also frozen. As councils already administer the crisis grant they have the information to continue paying housing benefit when a crisis grant is applied for.

Bedroom Tax

This can be compared to the situation of the Bedroom Tax in Scotland. Campaigning by the Scottish Anti Bedroom Tax Federation won full mitigation of the cut to housing benefit when the Scottish Government eventually agreed to allocate £50 million annually to Discretionary Housing Payment (DHP).

For months the Scottish Government claimed there was no means to mitigate this brutal austerity cut, until a campaign of mass meetings, protests and lobbying forced them to act.

The argument will be made that the Scottish Government should not have to cover the cost of austerity cuts made by the Westminster government. But the SNP should be fighting all austerity and refusing to implement the Con-Dem cuts by setting a no cuts budget.

The Scottish Government is likely to get increased powers over revenue and borrowing in April allowing even greater budgetary flexibility. A mass campaign involving trade unions, local authorities, communities and benefit claimants could be built demanding the return of the billions stolen from Scotland by the Con Dem government.