Following the publication of ‘Welfare sanctions and conditionality in the UK’ by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation last week, responses have been posted by academics working in the field.
Ken Gibb, an applied economist at the University of Glasgow, had this to say about the report:
“I have just read the new Joseph Rowntree Foundation Round-up ‘Welfare Sanctions and Conditionality in the UK’ by Beth Watts, Suzanne Fitzpatrick, Glen Bramley and David Watkins. This draws on the ESRC Welfare Conditionality: Sanctions, Support and Behaviour Change research programme (based on a series of briefings related to that programme). This is an excellent summary of the breadth and depth of the issues, the evidence that exists on the perceived effects, impacts and mechanisms of different forms of conditionality and also includes a valuable discussion of the ethics of welfare sanctions and increased conditionality.” Continue reading the full blog
Meanwhile, Alex Marsh, Professor of Public Policy at the University of Bristol, wrote this:
“One of the most striking developments in policy design in the UK is the rise of conditionality. It most prominently affects those who are out of work and seeking assistance from the welfare system, but it features across a range of other policy areas including housing and health.
Commentators might, quite rightly, rail against IDS and his insensitive disciplinary regime of seemingly indiscriminate sanctions, but he has only taken a system that was initiated by the Blairites in the 1990s and distilled it into something purer. He has made the conditions placed on receipt of assistance more stringent and the sanctions for transgression harsher. Indeed, it could be credibly argued that in some cases the system is now ludicrously harsh and vulnerable people are being set up to fail.” Continue reading the full blog
Today marks the launch of a number of publications by the research team. We have a round-up paper, commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which considers how effective welfare conditionality is, what the impacts are, how different groups fare, and to what extent it can be morally justified. The report can be downloaded from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation website, and you can read more about the findings in a blog by authors Dr Beth Watts and Prof Suzanne Fitzpatrick.
We have also published eight briefing papers, each outlining the ‘state of play’ in a particular area of policy. These policy areas are being examined closely as part of the research, and the papers lay out the current status of conditionality for each group of people. The papers can be downloaded from our Publications section.
Share your views: we invite your comments and thoughts on our papers through the comments sections on each page.
A new report published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation today focuses on conditional welfare arrangements, which require people to behave in a certain way to access welfare goods. Sanctions within the benefit system seek to incentivise work-seeking behaviour on the part of claimants, with the intention of tackling ‘welfare dependence’ by increasing the rate and speed of job entry.
Much recent controversy has surrounded the rapid escalation in the use of sanctions under Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). Monthly JSA sanction rates have risen from 2 to 2.5 per cent of claimants in 2000-2006 to 6 per cent by late 2013, and now stand over 7% (see Figure 1). While the number of ESA claimants affected by sanctions is small by comparison, a rapid increase in sanctioning of claimants in the ‘work related activity group’ is now also evident. According to Dr David Webster, in 2013/14 there were just short of 1 million sanctions under ESA and JSA, the highest figure since JSA was introduced in 1996 by a considerable margin. Read More
Followers of our blog will likely have seen the comment and analysis of Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) statistics from Dr David Webster in previous posts (The Great Sanctions Debate: Evidence and Perspectives). On 13th August, the DWP released the latest statistics relating to sanctions on Job Seeker’s Allowance (JSA) and Employment Support Allowance (ESA) Sanctions.
Dr Webster has kindly allowed us to publish his briefing paper, which summarises the information provided in these statistics, as well as commenting on other recent developments in relation to sanctions. Among the headlines are the increase in the number of JSA/ESA sanctions being applied in recent years. The document also contains links to the original DWP data.
Webster, D. (2014) The DWP’s JSA/ESA Sanctions Statistics Release, 13 August 2014
Watch an interview with team member Dr Beth Watts as she discusses the impact Scotland’s legal rights to housing have on homeless people and the outcomes of homelessness policy.
This interview comes from a series of videos highlighting plenaries given at the European Network for Housing Research Conference. Further information and videos can be found on the I-SPHERE Research and Policy Blog.
This Monday, the third expert seminar as part of the ESRC ‘Welfare Conditionality: Sanctions, Support and Behaviour Change’ research project took place in Sheffield. A range of experts, speaking from diverse perspectives (economics, human geography, sociology and psychology) were invited to give their take on the role of welfare conditionality in changing the behaviour of welfare recipients.
For me, a key theme during the day was that making access to welfare benefits and services conditional is only one of a multitude of tools and mechanisms that might be used to shift people’s behaviour:
Read More
Last week, the first event of our research project ‘Welfare Conditionality: Sanctions, Support and Behaviour Change’ took place at the University of York. This five year (2013-2018) programme aims to create an international and interdisciplinary focal point for social science research on welfare conditionality, that is, the linking welfare benefits and services to ‘responsible’ behaviour.
The project brings together teams of researchers working in six English and Scottish Universities and has two core aims:
1. Effectiveness: to develop an empirically and theoretically informed understanding of the role of welfare conditionality in promoting and sustaining behaviour change among a diversity of welfare recipients over time;
2. Ethicality: to consider the particular circumstances in which the use of conditionality may, or may not, be ethically justified.
Read More
The ‘Smarter Sanctions’ report produced by Policy Exchange has prompted many responses from those working in the field. David Webster has published his response (you can download it here), and Professor Lawrence Mead of New York University has sent this open message to the author, Guy Miscampbell: Read More
Trends in the use of benefit sanctions – and their impacts on the individuals who receive them – have been subject to widespread media coverage and debate recently. ‘Hungry Britain?’ – an episode of Panorama aired on BBC 1 on 3rd March (and available here) – raised the question of whether increasing numbers of food banks in the UK[1] are the result of imprudent decisions, poor budgeting skills and misplaced priorities on the part of individuals or the result of welfare reform, in particular the increasing use and stringency of out-of-work benefit sanctions. Read More
Today sees the launch of the new website for the Welfare Conditionality: Sanctions, Support and Behaviour Change research project.
We would like your opinions and views on welfare conditionality, your reaction to our work and experiences of implementing or living with the impacts of conditional welfare.
Your contributions will help us frame our research approach and inform our future work.
Use the comments box here or under each article in the blog.
