Benefits: Sanctions

Lord Stoneham of Droxford Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, as part of the Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Act we passed earlier this year, we are having a review, which is being run by Matthew Oakley. He is concentrating on precisely the issues of communication that the noble Lord raised.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

My Lords, one of the complications of the sanctions policy could be its impact on the Troubled Families programme. Will my noble friend confirm the number of instances of second-time sanctions, and how many of them were part of the Troubled Families programme?

[Lord Freud]

I thank my noble friend for giving me advance notice of that question. Only a small proportion of claimants are sanctioned two or more times. For high-level sanctions, only 5% received two sanctions and 1% received a third sanction. On the specific question about the Troubled Families programme, that provision is delivered by local authorities and unfortunately we do not have the data available at the present time.