CAMPAIGNERS and academics are warning that urgent action must be taken to halt the number of people facing long-running benefits sanctions, which are leading to physical and mental suffering.
The call comes as the Trussell Trust, which has 50 food banks in Scotland as part of its UK network of more than 400, prepares to release its latest figures on the number of people forced to rely on its services.
The full statistics – which will be available tomorrow – are expected to show that benefit sanctions, including longer sanctions of between 13 weeks and three years, are among the top reasons why people seek emergency food parcels from the charity.
Last November, it revealed that food bank use in Scotland has increased to record levels, with more than 60,000 referrals to its services being made over a six-month period.
Ewan Gurr, Scotland network manager for the Trussell Trust, said that though guidelines state the charity will provide three emergency food parcels over a 12-month period, the increasing number of sanctions being handed out of between 13 weeks and three years meant that this was now regularly overlooked, with 11 parcels provided over six months in one case.
“Those who are sanctioned tend to use our food banks on more than one occasion due to the longer-term nature of the crisis. If you have been sanctioned for 13 weeks, three parcels are simply not going to cover you,” he told The National.
“Although government figures demonstrate a decrease in recent years in the number of people being sanctioned, we cannot afford to underestimate the impact that a benefits sanction can have on someone’s mental or physical wellbeing. This is particularly true of longer-term sanctions.
“Over time we find it severely affects a person’s dignity. They are not able to live with the freedoms that we consider normal when they are constantly thinking about where their next meal will come from.
“When we speak to people we sense they have lost hope.”
Though official stats show up to two-thirds of sanctions are overturned on appeal, he claimed many people were thrown into survival mode and so accepted, rather than fought, the decision to sanction their benefits. This means that when they are sanctioned for the second time, the period for which benefits are withdrawn rises from four to 13 weeks.
Professor David Webster, an expert in welfare reform at Glasgow University, said though the number of sanctions had reduced from more than a million to an estimated 414,000, about a quarter were now for more than 13 weeks.
“The rate of sanctions is still high and people are being sanctioned for much longer, and repeatedly,” he added. “There is a concern that the fall [in numbers] may reduce the amount of protest over the issue and might mean a decline in its visibility.
“There are still enough people affected for it to seriously undermine the public health of the poor.
“This needs to continue to get attention.”
Last year, a report warned there is a danger that food banks could become a “permanent feature of the welfare landscape in Scotland”, with more than 167 organisations now providing emergency provisions to those struggling to put food on the table.
However, the DWP has consistently denied a link between food banks and benefit sanctions despite substantial evidence to the contrary.
Peter Kelly, director of the Poverty Alliance, said: “We have to question the fact that in 21st-century Scotland we have a social security system that is willing to push people into destitution, and for up to three years.”
Lesley Riddoch: The reality of the DWP’s horrific sanctions regime
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