An evaluation on the effectiveness of benefit sanctions has been blocked by the work and pensions secretary Thérèse Coffey, it has emerged, as fresh government plans to impose financial penalties on jobless claimants who refuse any job offered to them were widely criticised as cruel and “missing the point”.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) commissioned its own internal research on the effectiveness of sanctions in 2019 and explicitly promised to make the findings public, in part to settle an ongoing political row over whether sanctions were effective – as ministers insisted they were – in persuading people into work.
