Page 59 - Reforming Benefits Decision-Making

issued for a first failure to comply with the claimant commitment. The
warning should be clearly communicated to the claimant via their
preferred method of communication. It should be used only in cases
where the claimant would otherwise by sanctioned i.e. they do not have a
good reason for failure to comply, and not as a substitute for the proper
application of the good reason test. In our view, a warning is more likely to
increase subsequent compliance. Studies have shown that sanctions can be
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counterproductive in terms of future compliance and a warning would
provide an opportunity to ensure that claimants understand their commitments
and are not being sanctioned due to a lack of understanding. Further, we think
this is fair given the serious consequences of non-compliance. We understand
that the DWP was trialling this in a series of small-scale proof of concept
pilots for failure to attend a Work-Search Review, but these were put on hold
due to the pandemic. We hope that these are picked back up as soon as
possible and, if successful, applied more widely to any sanctionable failure.

2.73 The Work and Pensions Select Committee also recommended that once a
sanctions decision is referred to the decision-maker there should be an
additional stage where the decision-maker would make a “provisional
decision.” This would be communicated to the claimant, together with the
evidence on which it was based. The claimant would then have 30 days to
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challenge this evidence or actively opt not to provide further evidence.
2.74 This system is not dissimilar from a trial ‘early warning system’ that was
tested by the DWP in 2016. Under this trial if, at the end of the normal
decision-making process, the decision-maker would have normally sanctioned
a claimant, instead a Sanctions Warning Letter would be sent to the claimant
giving them 14 days to provide extra evidence. The decision-maker would
decide whether to apply the sanction at the end of those 14 days, taking any
additional evidence provided into account. Only 13 per cent of claimants took
advantage of the extra time to provide evidence and in half the cases in which
the evidence was provided the sanction was imposed. The evaluation also

158 Welfare Conditionality, Final findings report: Welfare Conditionality Project (see n. 121 above) p.
4.
159 Work and Pensions Committee, Benefits Sanctions (see n. 11 above) para 125.

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