CAmpaign against increased universal credit SANCTIONS
What is the policy change and when did it happen?
15th March 2023: Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced increased childcare support and tighter sanctions for UC claimants.
24th July 2023: The DWP introduced the new work coach meeting requirements, namely:
Parents of one year olds must meet with a job coach every three months – up from every six months.
Parents of two-year-olds must meet with their job coach monthly - up from every 3 months.
25th October 2023: The DWP increased work requirements for lead carers of 3 year olds to 30 hours per week (up from 16 hours for lead carers of 3-4 year olds, and up from 25 hours for lead carers of 5-12 year olds).
If you want to learn more about how this impacts you or how to challenge your claimant commitment, visit this page.
what is wrong with this policy?
There are a lack of flexible jobs available for 30 hours a week.
There is a lack of childcare. Childcare which is available is expensive and the 30 hours funding is only during term time. Furthermore, it’s not available in Northern Ireland.
Single parenting is a demanding job and increasing work hours without consideration of single parents’ caring responsibilities is likely to create a mental health crisis.
Career progression for single parents will be negatively impacted as people are pushed to take lower level jobs and training and development opportunities are harder to access.
Current challenges in the workplace are ignored by this policy. There is a lack of understanding from employers about the realities facing single parent employees and widespread discrimination within the workplace.
There will be inequalities in how this policy is felt, with those on lower incomes hit hardest.
There are implementation issues with this policy including work-coach meetings often being unhelpful and flexibilities within the system not being guaranteed.
who will be impacted?
The DWPs statistics show that 700,000 individuals will be impacted. This breaks down as:
98,000 lead carers of 1 year olds (having to meet a work coach every 3 months)
84,000 lead carers of 2 year olds (having to meet a work coach every month)
140,000 lead carers of 3 and 4 year olds who will need to increase their work availability to 30 hours (from the current 16 hours)
385,000 lead carers of 5 to 12 year olds who will have to increase their work availability to 30 hours (from the current 25 hours)
The breakdown of this group overall is:
90% women; 10% men.
33% have declared a health condition; 67% have not.
what campaigning has happened so far?
We conducted research into how this policy is impacting single parents, available to download here.
We secured a non-inquiry evidence session on the topic of UC work requirements and single parents and gave oral evidence as part of this to the Work and Pensions Committee on 17th April, 2024. You can watch the recording here.
We have supported dozens of people to write to their MP to raise concerns (template letter available here).
Our campaign partner - Mothers Uncovered - set up a petition to prevent the policy change in April. The petition closed on 24th October, 2023 with 23,283 signatures.
We have been highlighting the issues to the media - securing pieces in the Daily Record, the Metro and the Guardian.
We have been in regular contact with the DWP to raise our concerns and try to understand how the policy will be implemented.
We raised a Ministerial question on the Equality Impact Assessment which was asked by Rupa Huq MP who is the Chair of the Single Parents APPG.
We signed an open letter from Gingerbread to the Chancellor calling on him to reverse this policy as a matter of urgency.
We are working with relevant non-governmental and governmental bodies to better understand the impact of this policy.
We made a Freedom of Information request for the Equality Impact Assessment for additional conditionality for lead carers of parents with young children. The Assessment has now been shared and is available here.
We have been sharing stories of lived experience from our members with other organisations campaigning against this policy change.
what can i do to campaign against this policy?
Write to your MP to highlight the problems with this policy. A template letter is available here.
Share your stories with us so we can understand the impact and lobby for change. Contact us here.
What if My Claimant Commitment changes?
If you are impacted by this change and want to understand how it impacts you and how to negotiate a more manageable claimant commitment, there is more information and advice available here.
conditionality changes over time
These latest conditionality changes are another step in a long-term government strategy to place greater conditionality on single parents over time. Our timeline below outlines the key changes to date since work conditions were first introduced for single parents in 2008.
TAKE MORE ACTION
Take a look at our take action page for other campaign activities.