Benefit Sanctions

Although this post is not strictly motoring related I think there are some lessons from the motoring context that can inform how we respond to the issue of benefit sanctions.

Today I was sent a link to this excellent piece by Dr David Webster.

Webster reports that 

Benefit sanctions are an amateurish, secret penal system which is more severe than the mainstream judicial system, but lacks its safeguards. It is time for everyone concerned for the rights of the citizen to demand their abolition.

For anyone who has ever been on job seekers allowance the incredible pettiness of the job search scheme and the ever present threat of sanctions is very real and very demoralising.

For my own view the scheme of sanction is an absolutely disgraceful attempt to undo any understanding of solidarity in the social security system.  This is not to suggest that sanctions are never warranted, of course they may be, but the truly horrifying element of this story is that such sanctions seem whimsical in the extreme.  No due process, no fair hearing, no presumption of innocence, no mistakes are allowed (sound familiar to any claims made about speeding FPN enforcement? although of course at least there the income isn't taken at source and probably doesn't represent your entire income, and you do have the option of an independent tribunal BEFORE any income is taken).

Sanctions may at times be needed but as Webster points out the overwhelming majority of sanctions are aimed at incredibly minor infractions.  Such infractions could include only taking 35 instead of the required 40 job steps that week, taking a Sunday off job searching, failing to log into the governments Universal Job Match (which if anyone has ever used the system as I have should concur that it is absolutely rubbish, it doesn't allow sector specific searches and seems designed solely to cater to agency jobs (which again from personal experience aren't really jobs just speculative adverts trying to get you to sign up or are actual jobs that you can apply for directly  without the agency)).

What struck me particularly, and this is where it links in with motoring enforcement, was the chart.  The data lines look broadly similar to speeding enforcement by way of FPN and Speed Awareness Course.  In speeding the awareness course is now the main means of "punishment", FPN fines have reduced.  What strikes me is that some people I have interviewed for my PhD have given a reason for not attending the course that 'its obvious you shouldn't speed so there is nothing to learn'.  Now I'm not sure this is entirely true, generally such views are accompanied by a view that its easier and cheaper (when factoring in the time) to pay the FPN.  However I can understand that point it really is quite easy to understand the prohibition against speeding.  Now compare that to the situation with benefit sanctions, welfare law is notoriously complex (it probably rivals tax law as the most complex area) and yet in this complex area perhaps where some education would help in understanding the process (and the incredibly complex forms you have to fill in) sanction seems to be the easiest word!

Before anyone objects to the above, think of this.  Would any employer be entitled to run a system like this?  It would be an illegal deduction from your wages in all likelihood, and given that they would in effect be stopping all your wages it is likely that you would have been constructively (if not directly) dismissed.  Only tuppenny ha'penny firms still stuck in the 1970's would ever consider acting in this manner (and would likely have unfairly dismissed you), and yet this is the government we have now.  If you receive benefits not only are you expected to work 365 days a year (and vastly below the minimum wage particularly if enrolled on the work fare program), you are expected to know the intricacies of the benefit regime and if you don't, well then you either starve or get to a food-bank if you are lucky (and look how angry ministers get when food-banks are brought up!)

Where is the compassion or understanding? Again I would reiterate the point I'm not talking about long term unemployed here the evidence suggests that the majority of sanctions are for those who are short term.  It is ridiculous and part of an attempt to shape a particular form of citizenry that approaches an ideal that very few can match.  It wouldn't be so bad if sanctions were a last resort, but they are not, they are the first go to policy option.  If there is a problem a financial sanction can solve it (unless it involves people we like or who might vote for us then we can think about education first).

In any event I hope after reading this you do read Websters blog and report it is depressing and makes me incredibly angry!