A 5 year research programme to investigate the effectiveness of benefit sanctions and work support in helping people to change people's behaviour, has published its initial findings. Among their key findings was that "The impacts of benefit sanctions are universally reported by welfare service users as profoundly negative. Routinely, sanctions had severely detrimental financial, material, emotional and health impacts on those subject to them. There was evidence of certain individuals disengaging from services or being pushed toward ‘survival crime’."
They also found that the availability of appropriate individual support was the common thread when people did find work or changed problematic behaviour but that there was too little of it available.
The research has so far interviewed over 400 people, some within Greater Manchester and contains many quotes and examples of grossly unfair treatment of claimants. The findings cover a wide range of policy areas: anti-social behaviour; disabled people; homelessness; jobseekers; lone parents; migrants; offenders; social tenants; Universal Credit.