Ashton Under lyne, baby, benefit repayments,, benefit sanctions, Black Isle Media, Boris Johnson, Brighthouse, child poverty, confidence, conservative government, Cookery, coronavirus, cost of living, covid 19, Damien Green, Decision maker, dignity pre paid funerals,, disability, DLA, domestic violence, domestic violence,, DPAC, DWP blog,, dwp debt, Elderly, energy poverty,, ESA, eugenics, Family, feminism, Food, Food bank, food poverty, Free, frugal, fuel poverty, funeral plans,, G4S, government, Green Party, high street retail, Homeless Manchester, Homeless women, homelessness, homelessness,, Housing, hunger, Hygiene Poverty,, International Women's Day, Ireland budget 2024, Ireland,, Jeremy Corbyn, Jobcentre, Ken Loach, liz truss, Manchester, Mandatory reconsideration, Money saving tips, New Charter Housing, NHS, NHS dentist, Northern resisters, Payday loan, PIP, PIP claim, poverty, pre paid funeral plans,, pre paid funerals,, prepaid energy, prepaid energy metres, prime minister, public transport, republic Ireland Budget, Republic Ireland budget 2023, republic Ireland Budget 2024, Republic of Ireland,, rishi sunak,, safe hands,, sanctions, Steven Crabb, suicide, targets, Tax credits, television, Television Licence, Television Licence fines, Teresa May, The Big Issue, The Labour Party, The Poor Side Of Life, Theresa May, trade union movement, Uncategorized, Universal credit, wilkos, womens rights, Workfare, Workprogramme, young people

Sanctioned At Christmas

It seems from years of experience in such matters that the DWP like nothing more than handing out sanctions during the festive period.

If that isn’t bad enough their reasoning for sanctioning people is mostly totally unreasonable, giving claimants targets that they can’t reach.

In my eyes sanctioning a person is the cruelest thing to do to a claimant. No regard is given as to the health and wellbeing of them either, once the decision is made by their DWP work coach and sent off for approval it’s down to the claimant to appeal the sanction.

Appealing a decision to sanction isn’t easy, it’s difficult and directly impacts their mental and physical health and a direct correlation between the two can be found. Please see my previous blog posts.

Here are some examples of the reasons why claimants have been sanctioned. It’s gaslighting at its worst but hey the DWP has targets to reach.

I’ve helped many people with sanction decisions. You might think that these are made up but they aren’t they’re the real deal.

Sanctioned because claimants father had just died.

Sanctioned because a claimants father had just passed away half an hour before the signing on appointment.

They phoned their advisor up and were told that they had to attend their appointment. The claimant was waiting for the doctor to certify the death.

Sanctioned because their baby died.

A claimant sanctioned because they couldn’t attend their appointment due to their baby dying. They asked their work coach if they could rearrange their appointment but was refused. Instead they were told to bring the death certificate in to prove it.

Sanctioned because a work coach made a mistake.

Sanctioned because a work coach made a mistake in their records for an upcoming appointment. Luckily the claimant had kept the proof on their appointment which was given on an appointment card showing the time and date that they were given to attend

The case of the missing letters

Here’s a very common reason for sanctioning people.

Sanctioned for not attending an appointment that they had supposedly been sent a letter for.

The letter was never sent.

The onus is on them to prove that the claimant recieved it. They couldn’t because they didn’t.
Watch out for this one folks

Sanctioned for attending a job interview.

Sanctioned for attending a a job interview at the same time as a signing on appointment.

They requested that their appointment be changed so they could attend their interview but their advisor refused.

Important to know that they’d also sanctioned for not attending their interview.

It’s a catch22 a no win situation except for the DWP

Any reputable organisation would not threaten to sanction or indeed sanction people for the above reasons. They’d actually care about the people that they help.

The DWP do neither, they don’t even care for their staff and it’s scandalous that they’re allowed to get away with this.

As I’ve previously posted sanctioned rates are rapidly increasing.

It’s important to remember that sanction decisions can be appealed and you must do this.

A huge thank you to everyone for reading and sharing my blog posts. You make a huge difference when you do this and I can’t thank you enough.

Please share my blog posts it does help lots!

Like you I’m struggling to manage everything, I was hoping to be able to turn my heating on for a few hours on Christmas day for my daughter but that’s impossible now. Nor will I be able to provide a decent Christmas dinner.

If you can afford to and would like to donate to keep my blog going and myself there’s a donate button at the top and side of this blog post.

15 thoughts on “Sanctioned At Christmas”

  1. Pingback: DWP Sanctions – thephilosophicalmuse

  2. I had a friend who got sanctioned and the reason was for missing an appointment for a time the jobcentre was closed, Wednesday at 09:00 luckily he had the time and date on a card the DWP had issued him. At first they tried to say it was fake. He had another friend who was a solicitor and they wrote to the DWP saying that he had evidence of the DWP not being open at the appointment time and would take the case to court if they sanctioned him because of this.
    He then received two letters on saying the sanction was for 3 months and another saying the sanction was cancelled, he phoned the DWP and they said the sanction was still in place and to bin the other letter. He recorded the call and used the evidence in court and won getting his costs paid plus £75 compensation and all backdated payments.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  3. Beggars belief doesn’t it? Really inhumane. My own threat of a sanction: just been forced onto JSA as a lone parent, was working 11 hours a week as a senior midday supervisor (the clues in the job title). Advisor gives me a letter saying i have a back to work appointment at 12. 20 on X date. I politely ask him to change it as I’ll be working at the time and don’t want to inconvenience my EMPLOYER. He decides I’m refusing an activity and threatens a sanction. I politely ask to see a supervisor or manager and refuse to leave until i do. One comes over, thankfully she had sense, of course we’ll change it, don’t understand why it got to this, could you do 2,30 instead?? Attitudes vary even in the same jobcentre which is even scarier, and there’s no rulebook for UC. i asked when i came to Wales if I’d get an automatic sanction (I had left a job, even though it was for homelessness reasons) . Advisor said I shouldn’t, it would depend on the coach, personally she wouldn’t sanction me, but someone else might! Luckily no one did, though I’d kept proof of all the housing shit in photos videos screenshots etc. Sanctioned for being homeless beggars belief too …

    Like

    Reply

    1. Outrageous abuses of power within an utterly shambolic system operating without any proper oversight. The DWP is a rogue department and a law unto itself. I only just completed a 15 month duration of the Work and Health Programme with Reed in November but now my JCP Adviser (‘Work Coach’ or whatever) is referring me to the Restart scheme at Maximus for 12 months starting in the New Year. If I don’t comply it will be Sanctions of course. Bloody ridiculous, especially when they’re applying this nonsense to people in their 50s & 60s, what next a Detention? , or lines, “I must attend the scheme. I must…”?

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      2. They got to keep us oldies busy Trev!! I’ll never get it, I live in older person housing, in less than 3 months I can apply for the older person bus pass, but the DWP think I can do 12 hour cleaning or factory shifts, or retrain as a lifeguard, or be a kitchen porter, or give up my social housing flat to live in a caravan on a holiday park and clean toilets for the holiday season….

        Liked by 1 person

      4. Yes but only after explaining to her that I’d enquired about the training and you can’t do it if you already have an Educational level above what they’re providing training for because the funding doesn’t cover it, if you already have a Degree, which I have, and in any case I already completed a Warehousing course in 2017 on the Right Steps to Work that they referred me to, gaining BTEC Levels 1 & 2 in the Principles of Storage and Warehousing.

        Liked by 1 person

  4. The possibility of Sanctions are always at the back of my mind, so you can never fully relax, have I applied for enough jobs, will they sanction me. It shouldn’t be allowed, and especially not at Christmas.
    Regarding your own situation Charlotte, have you applied for help from the LWP Housing Shpport Fund? It’s online, takes a few minutes and anyone in need of help can apply, you just need to scan your most recent bank statement. I just got £400 from mine. It’s discretionary.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  6. The examples you gave of sanctions seem cruel and unjust, imagine sanctioning someone because their baby had died! Are there any justifiable reasons for missing an appointment, maybe they would accept the person’s death as one.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment