Unemployed residents of ELL boroughs issued with twice the number of JSA sanctions as the rest of London

Out-of-work ELL residents face more sanctions than the rest of London. Pic: Helen Cobain

Out-of-work ELL residents have received high number of sanctions. Pic: Helen Cobain

Out-of-work residents in the boroughs covered by ELL received over twice as many Job Seekers Allowance sanctions as the rest of London’s benefits claimants, Government data released on Wednesday revealed.

The number of claimants losing their benefits for reasons such as not looking hard enough for a job, failure to attend an interview or leaving a job voluntarily, have soared since the Department of Work and Pensions instituted its new regime last year.

The south district, covering Croydon and Lewisham Job Centres, issued over 70,000 sanctions between October 2012 and June 2013.

Tower Hamlets and Hackney’s east London district issued over 60,000 sanctions. The district with the next highest sanctions number, west London, had 27,000.

A Department of Work and Pensions spokesperson said: “We wouldn’t speculate as to the reason [behind the London Job Centre district disparity] since there could be any number of explanations for the difference. For example, size of Job Centre, variations in demographics, variations in caseload levels.”

Clive Baulch, 57, a Lewisham resident and former social worker involved in many local anti-austerity campaigns, was sanctioned last November under the new rules.

“I was sanctioned at Forest Hill Job Centre [in Lewisham] which is notoriously bad for sanctions,” said Baulch.

The day he was issued with the decision, Baulch was early for an advisor appointment, and waited half an hour until the advisor entered, according to him, “in a foul mood.”

“[The advisor] snatched the job diary out of my hands, looked at it and said she was going to give me an immediate sanction,” said Baulch. “When I asked why, she said I had not been looking for work which threw me somewhat given I’d applied for 900 jobs in a six month period. I protested to her and the manager, but they responded with ‘If you’re sanctioned, you’re sanctioned and there is nothing you or I can do.’”

Baulch, a diabetic, currently lives without benefits and survives on a “fast-depleting freezer stock.”

Abalye Jobe, 43, a former construction worker now pursuing his CSS qualification, was sanctioned at the Dalston Job Centre in Hackney.

Jobe said: “I was sanctioned for three months because they said I wasn’t doing enough job searches but I’d been spending most of my days searching for jobs online and offline. In my opinion, I think they sanctioned me because they thought I was getting money from elsewhere but I most definitely wasn’t. Why would I bother coming to this place if I didn’t have to?”

Minister for Employment Esther McVey said: “This government has always been clear that in return for claiming unemployment benefits jobseekers have a responsibility to do everything they can to get back into work. We are ending the something-for-nothing culture.”

Critics of the new regulations, under which JSA benefits can be suspended for up to three years, have said that increasing sanctions do not help claimants get back into work. They claim that job seekers are forced into low-wage, unstable positions, or they push job seekers deeper into poverty.

Gillian Guy, Chief Executive of the Citizens Advice Bureau, said: “The sanctions system is all stick and no carrot. At Citizens Advice we’ve seen a 64 per cent increase in problems with JSA sanctions since this time last year. From July to September this year, Citizens Advice Bureaux dealt with 3,895 issues to do with Jobseekers Allowance. This is becoming a chronic problem, based on a bad system, which is getting worse.”

by Hajera Blagg and Maya Oppenheim

Leave a Reply