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UNIVERSAL CREDIT SANCTIONS RISE ENORMOUSLY IN FOUR MONTHS

As many of you already know the DWP never miss an opportunity to sanction claimants, however it was much harder to do so whilst the country was in lockdown because of the pandemic.

The drop in Universal Credit sanctions was as a result of changes to the conditionality rules that were implemented in March 2020 because of the pandemic.

Normal service seems to have resumed sadly with the rate of Universal Credit sanctions rising 15 fold in four months according to Benefits And Work.

This all changed in April 2021 when face to face meetings returned thus causing sanctions levels to rise. This proves that the decision to sanction claimants lies firstly with Job Coaches and often is influenced by their opinion and not fact.

Theres no other reason for this when online claimant were seen to meet the expectations of their claimant commitments, yet now they apparently don’t.

Benefit sanctioning is an extremely cruel way of punishing someone for apparently not reaching the DWPs expectations. Taking away a persons financial means of survival is wrong on all levels, it’s hard enough trying to survive on the meagre amount of monies given in the first place.

I’ve blogged about benefit sanctions for many years now, and I’ve also had articles published in newspapers etc.

My opinion is this, and it will never change.

No one should be punished financially by sanctions. Sanctions do not and never have encouraged people to find work or look for work more diligently.

When a claimant is sanctioned they can only focus on keeping warm, being able to eat and how they’re going to pay their rent.

Being sanctioned and refusing to pay ESA and PIP claimants their rightful payments directly causes mental and physical distress, often leading to long term illness and depression.

Whilst quite rightly we are told to leave an abusive relationship for our own safety a person can’t leave the DWP and everything that comes with it. It’s obscene that people are treated in this manner, being guilty before being found innocent. It’s gaslighting at its worst.


Prior to the pandemic the highest sanctioning levels happened back in July 2019, when 22,566 claimants were hit with a reduction in their benefit.
I have no doubt that this figure will be surpassed if it hasn’t already.

We must continue to hold the government and the DWP responsible for their actions.

Many thanks once again to Benefits And Work for their hard work for researching and gathering the data. They work extremely hard to help others.

If you want to raise awareness about these issues and more there are several ways that you can do so.

You can share blogs such as mine and likewise online of your preferred social media platform. You can also email blogs and articles like mine to MPs and other important people and influencers.

Every share, tweet, conversation etc helps to raise awareness and this is extremely important to do.

If you live in the Greater Manchester area and you’d like to get involved please join https;\\manchesterdpac.com You will find likeminded people and will be given opportunities to join in any activities that they are doing.

Unite community is another trade union organisation that is well worth joining. There is a small payment to join but you can get help and advice from them also. You can join them over at http:\\join.unitetheunion.org

Photo by Kat Smith on Pexels.com

Please read, share, tweet and email my blog posts. Like I said earlier every share helps enormously.

Huge thank you to everyone that has and does support my blog and campaign. Without you I really couldn’t do this.

How am I doing? Not good unfortunately a very good friend of mine died this week, and I’m struggling to cope with it because I’m still grieving for my son.

Financially I’m also struggling. I’m having to make the choice between heating and eating. I know that so many of you are struggling with this as well.

If anyone would like to donate to keep my blog and campaign going or to help me put some electric on the meter theres a PayPal donation link at the top, side and underneath this blog post.

I am trying to update my blog more than once a week as you might have noticed this week.

Ashton Under lyne, baby, Boris Johnson, Brighthouse, confidence, Cookery, coronavirus, covid 19, Damien Green, Decision maker, DLA, DPAC, Elderly, ESA, eugenics, Family, feminism, Food, Food bank, Free, frugal, fuel poverty, G4S, government, Green Party, Housing, hunger, Jeremy Corbyn, Jobcentre, Ken Loach, loose women, love island, Mandatory reconsideration, Money saving tips, New Charter Housing, Northern resisters, Payday loan, PIP, poverty, prepaid energy, prepaid energy metres, sanctions, Steven Crabb, suicide, targets, Tax credits, television, Teresa May, The Big Issue, The Labour Party, The Poor Side Of Life, Theresa May, trade union movement, Uncategorized, Universal credit, womens rights, Workfare, Workprogramme, young people

Lockdown number two and more DWP cruelty.

Dear readers its Thursday again. Time passes so quickly, in a blink it appears to be another day. I remember being a kid and wanting desperately to be an adult. How stupid was I.

I’m much the same as last week, but I managed to get my meds so hopefully I’ll be feeling a lot better soon. I know that I keep saying this and I do think that I’m being a bit over optimistic when I say this. As long as my daughter is at school the more viruses she will bring home.

Today didn’t start well. Almost as soon as my daughter arrived at school her school bag broke. Wonderful, I can’t budget for things like this and some would say that we shouldn’t be wasting our money on ‘frivolous’ things like this.

The fact is that essentials aren’t exclusively food. Essentials also mean gas, electric, clothing for children and ourselves. Now that charity shops have shut down once again because of the second lockdown the option to buy clothes and such essentials at a cheaper price has been taken away.

Don’t get me wrong, I totally agree with the second lockdown, only it isn’t a lockdown is it. Schools are still open and debt collectors are still knocking on doors demanding money often with menaces.

Schools especially secondary schools aren’t providing adequate social distancing for both pupils, teachers and all school staff. There isn’t the room to do this and you wouldn’t believe how many people really think that these measures are in place.

To be honest how are they supposed to know the truth if they don’t have a child at school or have friends with children at school. The mainstream media have made it sound like it’s totally safe for our children to attend school.

It isn’t safe though and the government knows this. They don’t mind our children being used to continue with their herd immunity plans. They know exactly what they’re doing. They know that our children will pass covid onto family members but don’t expect them to care either.

The Tories have always seen the working class as an expendable commodity and I know that I keep saying this. They’ll use us until we die and even then they’ll try to chase up any so called deaths from grieving relatives.

It doesn’t end there though. They’ve fine tuned the DWP to harass both disabled and able bodied people so much that thousands have died as a result.

The DWP also has no soul, they don’t care about a persons circumstances either.

From this Monday anyone who doesn’t attend or participates in a telephone assessment for ESA or Universal Credit will have a very high risk of having their payments either reduced or cut off altogether.

What if a person is unable to talk on a telephone? The DWP don’t care. They tend to ignore a persons disability and circumstances and there’s lots of reasons what someone can’t use a telephone.

The burden will now be on disabled people to prove that they have a good reason for missing a telephone appointment. If the DWP doesn’t accept their proof then they risk having their social security payments being stopped.

This will affect thousands of disabled people including many people with mental health problems. But don’t expect the DWP to care about this either.

If anyone is affected by this please contact Debbie Abrahams either on Twitter using #DWPcutmysupport or email her at debbieabrahams.org.uk

Thank you to Debbie for continuing to push DWP related issues on behalf of us. She makes such a big difference.

As for the second lockdown.. It isn’t really a lockdown when schools are open and I urge everyone that has Facebook to join the BRUTUS page for details of campaigning for the closure of schools.

Although we do need this lockdown its important to check on each other to make sure that people are coping. Myself and others have been isolating since March but just because we’ve managed to do it doesn’t mean that everyone can cope.

Be kind, check on people, a smile can make such a big difference to someone’s day.

There’s also no need whatsoever to bulk buy toilet rolls etc. It’s complete madness.

People with disabilities need to be able to buy toilet rolls and I wish that people would stop being so bloody selfish.

Like thousands of others I wish that I could make my daughters life much better and everything that I do I do for her, for her generation so they won’t have to go through what we are going through now.

I also wish that I could do more to help more people. Having Covid 19 has really set me back. I survived it, I’m luckier than most people but the legacy of it lives on. To be honest I’m really fed up of it now.

I need to get well again but that’s a never ending battle whilst my daughter continues to go to school.

Over in America, Trumps having a strop because he can’t have everything his way and he could well loose the election.

Why is this important? Because it will affect our country in quite a few ways, trade wise and for other reasons. It will also help to stop the division and hatred that he’s stirred both in America and in the world in general.

I really hope that he looses and he can slither back to whence he came.

I’ll leave it here for now, but please note that I’m here for you and if you want to chat please contact me via messages on here or on my Facebook and Twitter profiles.

Lots of love to you all, you all mean the world to me.

Please read, share, tweet and email my blog. We really need to continue to get the truth out there.

A huge thank you to everyone that has and does support my campaign and blog.

For anyone that would like to donate the donate button is at the top and side of this blog. My paypal ad is seercharlotte@gmail.com

Thank you so much.