Benefit Sanctions, File on 4 - BBC Radio 4
Benefit Sanctions
File on 4
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Benefit sanctions are supposed to be part of a system helping people back to work. But critics say they penalise the vulnerable and are among the reasons for the growing use of food banks. So how fair is the Government's system of withholding state payments for those who don't comply with welfare rules? Allan Urry hears from whistleblowers who allege some JobCentrePlus staff are setting claimants up to fail in order to meet internal performance targets. Why did a recovering amputee lose his benefits because he didn't answer the phone?
(A view of the prog on FB)A new study into Ian Duncan Smith’s campaign of terror against the sick and disabled estimates that it caused some 590 suicides, 279,00 episodes of mental ill-health and 725,00 prescriptions of anti-depressants.’ This campaign of terror continues because 24% of the electorate are of the "I'm alright Jack" mentality. And all the independent research has shown that all this suffering has been for nothing as the target based benefit sanctioning or the ‘Workfare’ scheme has been completely ineffective at reducing unemployment. It has though had a detrimental effect on the life chances of the 93,000 children that live in households that have been sanctioned.
The BBC ‘File on 4’ programme even exposed the malicious practice of changing appointments without informing the person in order to provide a justification to sanction them. The programme also discovered that those individuals that had a learning difficulty such as dyslexia or were of lower intelligence were disproportionately sanctioned, not because they were lazy but because they were confused by the complexity of the system and the ‘49 steps’ that they had to achieve in order to continue to receive their benefits. Those that voted Tory despite being aware of such needless cruelty should bow their heads in shame for their complicity in such cruelty.
