WPC Sanctions Inquiry

Ref. the RN news story and link through to Parliament article on this. It says:

“...Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) sanctions, including: whether the current ESA sanctions regime is appropriate and proportionate for jobseekers with ill health and disabilities; and the reasons for recent sharp increases in the number of ESA sanctions”

Why are ESA claimants being described as ‘jobseekers’? Just a typo or is this something to do with the MR period, does anyone know?

I suppose that as ESA sanctions can only apply to people placed into the work-related activity group, they are effectively regarded as jobseekers, even though they’re not actually claiming jobseeker’s allowance.

Sounds like rhetoric to me.

Use of language to normalise the fact that people who are ill having to look for and do work.

I remember reading reports a couple of years ago saying that A4E werent differentiating between ESA and JSA claimants.

Here’s a link to the rightsnet news story -

http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/news/story/work-and-pensions-committee-launches-inquiry-into-benefit-sanctions-policy

and the Committee’s terms of reference for the inquiry -

http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/work-and-pensions-committee/news/benefit-sanctions-launch/