[nomadking]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

Sanctions did indeed exist before 2010 and are sometimes necessary to ensure compliance of the rules. However, not to this ridiculous extent. Extremely petty and ridiculous reasons are now being used to sanction people to get staff stats up. The DWP denied that staff were under pressure to do this, but this was found not to be true.

After losing a child and her partner, it's no wonder that her head was all over the place. The DWP used to be there to help people, now it's a culture of believing that everyone is a fraudulant liar until proved otherwise (and even then, like in this case, the sanction wasn't lifted).

It's one of the reasons i'm glad I no longer work for them, I simply couldn't treat people like this. A lot of experienced staff have either left or took refundancy, with the rest just biding their time until retirement. New and inexperienced staff are coming out with the most absurd comments and their decisions would be laughable if they weren't so damaging to those in need.

Further examples of ridiculous sanctions are an army veteran being found dead in his flat after starving to death, a man being sanctioned for 'failing to complete a medical examination' after having a heart attack during the examination, a lone parent being sanctioned because her toddler needed to use the toilet. Thousands of people have either died after being spuriously found fit for work or committed suicide because of this.

One bright spark decided to suspend my DLA, when I rang for a written statement of reasons and the regulations used to be quoted, she said "we don't need to tell you that"! I told her to to stop being silly and get a manager on the line. The manager apologised and immediately desuspended the claim, but how many people who aren't as au fait with the regulations as me would just have accepted this nonsense because they know no different?

It's true that people can appeal against the DWP and many are successful, but after they've been through the Mandatory Reconsideration stage, there are backlogs of over a year for appeals to be heard. How are they supposed to live until then?

I think that the loss of experienced staff is why so many mistakes are being made, though it doesn't help when the Government itself doesn't seem to know what it's doing. They introduced the Bedroom Tax, but didn't specify exactly what a bedroom was, leading to many people having an exemption granted. Another example is their attempts to abolish the Severe Disability Premium with the introduction of Universal Credut. They made a mess of that and have decided to award back pay of £120 a week, but some people lost £180 a week so another legal challenge is to be made.

She missed 8 appointments, not just the one. She didn't get sanctioned for missing that one. It was only when the missed appointments mounted up, all without explanation, that they took action.

"Sanctions are a last resort and when we are made aware - including retrospectively - of good reasons why appointments are missed, they will not be used.
"Universal Credit customers can keep in touch with their work coaches over the phone and via the online journal."

She apparently could attend hospital appointments, but not make an online entry or a phone call? Her partner could even have done it. She obviously thought she could get away with it multiple times, so didn't take any avoiding action.

The comments section accompanying the article isn't exactly supportive of her.

A woman says she was driven to shoplifting and drug abuse after having thousands of pounds from her Universal Credit payments cut after missing an appointment the day after suffering a miscarriage .

That is a blatant lie, as she missed/avoided multiple appointments.


Unless there was a previous letter, the DWP letter would suggest that the sanctions didn't start until until the face-to-face 8th Feb 17 appointment. At that point she would have been able to explain herself, but it wasn't accepted. The GP letter was dated 14th Mar 17. She should have been able to produce hospital letters.


The definition of excess bedrooms was set in place decades before 2010. It applied to private rented sector. No changes were initially made. Any changes were ones the Labour didn't introduce.