lofthouse
Monday 19th May 2014 9:25pm
Nowhere
13,880 posts
Last week Iain Duncan Smith met a whistle-blower who has worked for his Department for Work and Pensions for more than 20 years.
Giving the Secretary of State a dossier of evidence, the former Jobcentre Plus adviser told him of a "brutal and bullying" culture of "setting claimants up to fail".
"The pressure to sanction customers was constant," he said. "It led to people being stitched-up on a daily basis."
The man wishes to be anonymous but gave his details to IDS, DWP minister Esther McVey and Neil Couling, Head of Jobcentre Plus, who also attended the meeting.
"We were constantly told 'agitate the customer' and that 'any engagement with the customer is an opportunity to sanction'," he told them.
Labour MP Debbie Abrahams, the member of the DWP Select Committee who set up the meeting, has renewed her call for an inquiry into inappropriate sanctioning.
"I am deeply concerned that sanctions are being used to create the illusion the Government is bringing down unemployment," she said.
Sanctions pre-date the Coalition as a way of ensuring benefit claimants, who include the jobless and sick and disabled people on Employment Support Allowance, attend appointments and apply for jobs. But under the Tory-led Government, they have soared - to 897,690 a year from the most recent data.
Sanctions can last from a couple of days to three years, and leave claimants destitute.
C#nts