St Vincent’s HA has launched an on-line campaign to raise awareness of the unfair sanctions hitting many of their customers.
More and more people are being hit by the unfair sanctions imposed on benefit claimants.
The list of sanctions include trivial issues, such as being a few minutes late for a job centre appointment where the claimant has been subject to the vagaries of public transport.
The ‘claimant commitment’ as it has been branded forces those on jobseekers allowance to treat looking for work as a “full-time job”. What it does not do is consider an individual’s circumstances such as disabilities or dependants.
In some cases claimants have had their benefits stopped for up to 6 weeks for an extremely minor infraction and as a result the whole family hasn’t received a penny. We are seeing more and more people relying on food banks and accepting loans from disreputable lenders.
Charlie Norman’ Chief Executive said: “We have seen many of our customers unfairly hit by sanctions and we would like to see this very unfair policy ramped up the agenda and discussed at the highest level. I want to get as many people on board with this, and our friends at @RealLifeReform are also working hard to raise the profile of this problem. The more people we get on board, the more we can lobby the decision makers.”
You can sign up to the campaign and tweet the link here www.svha.co.uk/stopsanctions