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A shock new report by an influential committee of MPs has finally admitted that jobcentre staff are working to sanction targets, despite previous official denials.
UnemployedNet submitted a Freedom of Information request on this issue last year, and was assured by the head of Jobcentre Plus, Neil Couling, that targets were not being set.
Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith was faced with more accusations of sanction targets when he was questioned by MPs yesterday.
Appearing before the work and pensions select committee, Smith denied that sanction targets existed, despite being presented with evidence to the contrary.
This evidence included the testimony of a whistleblower who spoke to the committee on the same day, a former jobcentre worker from Manchester.
The government wants your views on the way it hands out sanctions within its Work Programme and similar schemes.
It has appointed Matthew Oakley as an independent reviewer to find out what those affected think of the issue.
Unsurprisingly, Oakley is a supporter of the Work Programme; in a Guardian article he wrote in March about the Cait Reilly/Poundland case he said:
A big rise in the number of sanction referrals handed out by jobcentres and other advisors means more jobseekers have moved into destitution.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has today released figures for sanctions - the act of removing benefits for a perceived offence - showing more have had money removed than ever before.
In 2011 - itself a record year - 1.34 million sanctions were handed out.
