In January, Inside Housing ran an online story reporting the findings of a survey by the Methodist Church that a hundred people a day with mental health problems are getting their benefits sanctioned by the Department for Work and Pensions.

I think it is well known amongst those who pay attention to such things that claimants with learning difficulties are sitting ducks for sanctions but what can you expect from a system where attending an interview is considered more important than actually going to the job you have just acquired.

But it isn’t just the lack of sympathy for those with mental health problems that concerns me. It is that, for a significant number of fit people, we are actually creating psychological problems.

A ‘serves them right’ attitude underpins this. These are the hallmarks of a society without pity and without understanding. Our society. Has this state-sponsored cruelty brought down the benefits bill? Not so far as I am aware.

It has probably increased the total benefit bill, what one department may have saved becomes extra cost for another such as the NHS for example.

It's a bit like the man who decides to turn his central heating off to cut down his gas bill and then has to use electric fires to heat his home, it may cost him more but he did achieve his, somewhat narrow minded,object.

Have you seen this?

Scottish Unemployed Workers Network activist Tony Cox was arrested on 29th January after Arbroath Jobcentre management called police to stop him representing a vulnerable jobseeker

The DWP clearly state “Claimants accessing Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefits and services can have someone to accompany them to act on their behalf…”

http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?p=4158