Claimant commitment sanctions have been reintroduced for new style ESA and JSA, the latest edition of the DWP newsletter Touchbase has revealed.
Sanctions relating to the claimant commitment had been suspended due to the pandemic. However, it is clear that it is now back to business as usual for the DWP, including sanctioning sick and disabled claimants.
According to Touchbase:
“This week a change was made to bring the obligations in new style JSA and ESA benefits in line with those in Universal Credit
“This will mean that, as is the case for Universal Credit claimants, if someone in receipt of new style JSA and ESA fails to do what they have agreed to in their Claimant Commitment without good reason - such as having or caring for a child, or a change to a health condition - their payments may be reduced for a set period. This is known as a sanction.
“All Claimant Commitments are tailored to a person’s personal circumstances and local jobs market, and claimants affected by this change are being informed of the introduction of the new process. Sanctions are only applied as a last resort when a claimant is not engaging with the commitment they have made. If someone disagrees with a decision they can ask for it to be looked at again.”
