PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Social Security Benefits: Greater Manchester (12 June 2014)

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many benefit sanctions for (a) not actively seeking employment, (b) refusal of employment, (c) failure to attend a mandatory interview, (d) failure to participate in work-related activity, (e) non-compliance with a Jobseeker's Direction were received by claimants in Wythenshawe and Sale East constituency between (i) April 2011 and March 2012 and (ii) April 2013 and March 2014.

Asked by:
Mike Kane (Labour)

The available information as requested is shown in the table below.

Number of adverse benefit sanctions applied in Wythenshawe and Sale East parliamentary constituency by referral reason.
Reason for referral	April 2011 to March 2012	April 2013 to December 2013
Not actively seeking employment	230	220
Refusal of employment	-	-
Failure to attend a mandatory interview	870	320
Failure to participate in Work-related activity	10	70
Non-compliance with a Jobseekers Direction	20	20

Source: (JSA and ESA): DWP Information, Governance and Security Directorate: Sanctions and Disallowance Decisions Statistics Database.

Source (IS): Income Support Computer System

Notes:

1. ‘-‘denotes nil or negligible. Numbers have been rounded to the nearest ten.

2. Data provided is up to December 2013 which is the latest available.

3. The number of benefit sanctions applied is the number of sanction or disallowance referrals where the decision was found against the claimant for those in receipt of Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA), Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) in the work related activity group, or Income Support (Lone Parents).

4. The following reasons for referral apply to JSA only: Not actively seeking employment; Refusal of employment; Non-compliance with a Jobseekers Direction.

5. Failure to attend a mandatory interview includes fail to attend a mandatory interview for ESA claimants, failure to attend/participate in a work focussed interview for ISLP claimants and failure to attend an adviser interview for JSA claimants.

6. Failure to participate on Work-related activity applies to ESA claimants in the work related activity group only

7. New sanctions rules came into force for JSA from 22 October 2012 and for ESA from 3 December 2012. The number of JSA sanctions applied for the new regime is the number of low, intermediate, and high level referrals where the decision was found against the claimant. Further information can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/jobseekers-allowance-overview-of-sanctions-rules

8. New regulations for ISLP claimants came into force on 28 April 2014.

An explanation of the full regulations is provided below can be found at: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/1097/contents/made

9. This information for JSA and ESA sanctions is published at:

https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/

Answered by:
Esther McVey (Conservative)
19 June 2014