THERE should be an immediate moratorium on sanctions on benefits until there is a fundamental review of the system, says Citizens Advice Scotland.

The charity and support organisation was echoing the calls of one of the country’s foremost experts on welfare, Dr David Webster, who told the National that the current system that sees unemployed people having their benefits withheld as a punishment, was not working.

Citizens Advice Scotland’s chief executive Margaret Lynch said: “CAB evidence is clear that sanctions are having a negative impact on many Scots. We support the parliamentary committee’s call for a fundamental review of the system, but in the meantime it makes sense that there should be a moratorium so that people don’t have to suffer the impact of sanctions unnecessarily.

“In principle, CAS does not object to the use of sanctions – but we believe they must be applied appropriately, with discretion and only as a last resort. Our evidence shows that often they are being applied unfairly and without warning or explanation, leaving people with very little money or none at all for long periods.”

The call comes days after the Work and Pensions Select Committee released a damning report of the system of sanctions. Amongst other recommendations the report called on the government to undertake a fundamental review of Employment and Support Allowance sanctioning.

While Dr Webster welcomed the findings of the committee, he worried that the implementation of their recommendations would take far too long. He said: “Unfortunately most of their recommendations will take quite a long time to implement. In particular, the full independent review of the sanctions system which they have called for will take at least 18 months.

“It makes no sense to continue this rotten system pending the rethinking which should have been done years ago. We need an immediate moratorium on sanctions. The review can then take its time in considering whether there is a case for re-instating any part of the system.”

Dr Webster, from the University of Glasgow, is the country’s foremost expert on benefits and sanctions. The academic is regularly called upon to share his research with politicians and policy makers in Holyrood and Westminster, and contributed to the evidence gathered by the Work and Pension’s Select Committee ahead of their report released on Monday.

Dr Webster also said that the Government could implement some of their recommendations immediately: “The committee has exposed the fact that sanctions do not have a proper evidence base and are causing a great deal of damage. Their recommendation that hardship payments should be available to sanctioned claimants from day one can be implemented immediately through a statutory instrument and would help to reduce the need for foodbanks.”

The political nature of the Westminster committee system means that although the report was hard hitting, it did not call for what would have been a politically embarrassing moratorium on sanctions. Although the Work and Pension Select Committee is made up of cross party MPs, the Conservative party have the majority.

Committee chairman, Dame Anne Begg could not join the call for a moratorium, but the Aberdeen South MP did say that Dr Webster was right to question the lack of evidence of the efficacy of sanctions: “He’s also absolutely right that there was not any evidence that supported their claims that sanctions worked or made it more likely that people would get into work. There is no evidence to back up government’s decision to harden sanction regime by making sanctions longer which was contained in the welfare reform Act.”

A spokesman for the DWP rejected the call for the moratorium: “As the [select committee] report recognises, sanctions are a vital backstop in the welfare system and are only used in a small minority of cases where claimants don’t do all they can to look for work.”