Page 47 - Reforming Benefits Decision-Making -(updated - August 2021)

outsourced provider, although the intention is for assessments to continue to
be carried out by contracted companies outside of the pilot. This pilot could
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be a welcome opportunity to assess the desirability and feasibility of bringing
health and disability assessments back ‘in-house’ and to learn lessons as to the
best way to carry out ‘in-house’ assessments.

Sanctions

2.52 The aim of conditionality and sanctions is to motivate claimants to engage
with employment support and move into work. The Welfare Reform Act
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2012 is the foundation of today’s conditionality and sanctions regime. It
established the rules for UC and amended those for legacy benefits so that
they were broadly aligned. In doing so, it increased the length and severity of
sanctions and made them applicable to more claimants than ever before. 119 By
their nature sanctions threaten some level of hardship. At the highest level,
UC claimants can be sanctioned for 13 weeks for a first higher-level sanction
120
and 26 weeks for any further higher-level sanction in any 364-day period.
Sanctions can have severe impacts not only on the financial well-being of
claimants but also on people’s mental and physical health.
121

2.53 Conditionality and sanctions can apply to claimants of UC, ESA, Job Seeker’s
Allowance and Income Support. The level and intensity of conditionality
depends on the claimant’s circumstances. In UC, claimants are placed in one
of four groups which define the level of support they can expect and what is

117 DWP, ‘Announcement on Health and Disability Assessment Services UIN HCWS138’ (2 March
2020).
118 DWP, ‘Written Evidence from the Department of Work and Pensions ANC0083’ (May 2018).
119 National Audit Office, Benefit Sanctions (HC 628, 2016).
120 The maximum length of a fixed-term sanction was reduced in 2019 from three years to 26 weeks.
121 Welfare Conditionality, Final findings report: Welfare Conditionality Project (2018). In respect of
the impact of sanction on mental health see P. Dwyer et al, ‘Work, welfare, and wellbeing: The impacts
of welfare conditionality on people with mental health impairments in the UK’ Soc Policy Admin.
2020; 54: 311-326; E. Williams ‘Punitive welfare reform and claimant mental health: The impact of
benefit sanctions on anxiety and depression’ Soc Policy Admin. 2021; 55: 157-172.

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