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A minister has been asked why the benefits of hundreds of sick and disabled claimants are apparently being sanctioned, even though they should not have to meet any of the strict conditions imposed by the government’s new universal credit system. Department […]
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is facing claims that it has been running a discriminatory benefit sanctions regime, following the publication of new research. Academic Ben Baumberg Geiger has found that more than 900,000 disabled claimants of the mainstream […]
Ministers are to test a new approach to dealing with claimants who breach strict benefit conditions for the first time, in the latest sign that the government is finally listening to calls to soften its much-criticised sanctions regime. The Department for […]
The government has been heavily-criticised by the public spending watchdog for failing to investigate how its own sanctions regime affects disabled people and other claimants of out-of-work benefits. The National Audit Office (NAO) report says the Department for Work and Pensions […]
A minister has admitted that it is not government policy to warn health or social services when “vulnerable” service-users have had their benefits “sanctioned”. The admission by the Conservative employment minister Esther McVey comes just weeks after her department admitted to […]