The proportion of universal credit (UC) claimants who have been sanctioned has fallen in the most recent quarter, but the number of sanctions handed out remains near record levels, according to figures released this week.
According to the DWP’s latest statistics, in August 2024, 5.61% of UC claimants who were in the conditionality regimes where sanctions can be applied, were undergoing a sanction.
This is down by 0.6% from May 2024 and is down by 1.5% compared to 12 months ago.
However, the actual number of sanctions imposed in July 2024 was 54,000. This is not far off the highest ever number, which was 59,000 in March 2022.
The reason why sanctions numbers have remained high, whilst the percentage rate of sanctions has fallen is that there are now more claimants in the conditionality regime who could face a sanction.
There are now 2.12 million UC claimants in the conditionality regimes where sanctions can be applied, making up 30.5% of the UC caseload.
As always, the overwhelming number of sanctions, currently 91%, are for failure to attend or participate an a mandatory interview.
The highest number of sanctions are in the 4-13 week band. In August 2024, 22,000 people completed a sanction of this length. 17,000 people completed sanctions lasting under 4 weeks in the same period.
There has been a worrying increase in the number of people completing sanctions lasting over 26 weeks. This had remained steady at around 3,600 a month but has leapt to 5,000 in August 2024.
This means that over 10% of all sanctions completed in August 2024 lasted for over 26 weeks.
If Labour is serious about encouraging more disabled claimants to attempt work, the barbaric sanctions regime is one of the first things that needs to go. As long as it exists, the very rational fear of doing anything to disturb an existing claim will be almost insurmountable.
You can read the full sanctions statistics here.
Members can download our guide to “Ways to prevent and overturn ESA and UC sanctions” from the ESA/UC Guides page.
