Official Statistics

Benefit sanctions statistics to February 2024

Published 14 May 2024

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

This is the latest quarterly release of statistics on Benefit Sanctions and includes data up to February 2024.

The next statistics release will be 13 August 2024.

We are seeking user feedback on this statistical bulletin. Send comments to: epass.team@dwp.gov.uk

There should be no comparisons made across benefits.

Sanction rate and duration statistics use the same data sources and base methodology. Please see the UC background information and methodology document. However, the sanction rate and duration cover different time periods with the sanction rate measured at a point in time (second Thursday of every month). Whereas sanctions duration is measured in the month that the sanction ended. Comparisons with UC prior to February 2024 and historic statistics for sanctions on legacy benefits should not be made. This is because the data sources, methodology and rules of the benefits differ from those used for UC currently.

The sanctions process means that the outcome of a sanction is subject to retrospective changes which should be considered when using the decision and rate data.

We have reviewed the Official Statistics in Development label on the Benefit Sanctions Statistics, following the reinstated duration measures and rate methodology improvements. We have determined that the UC data is now stable and fit for purpose, and as such we are removing the “in development” label. As of 14 May 2024, these statistics will be published under the “Official Statistics” label. We will continue to progress developments to meet user needs through the DWP Statistical Work Programme.

For further information on this change, see the status of the statistics section of the background information and methodology document.

1. Main stories

The statistics show:

• in February 2024, 6.52% of Universal Credit (UC) claimants who were in the conditionality regimes where sanctions can be applied, were undergoing a sanction on the count date. The UC sanction rate is down by 0.64 percentage points from November 2023 and is down by 0.32 percentage points in the latest 12 months     

• in February 2024, 30.1% of UC claimants were in the conditionality regimes where sanctions can be applied

• failure to attend or participate in a mandatory interview accounted for 94.9% of all adverse sanction decisions in the last year and 93.4% in the latest quarter

• in February 2024 there were 20,000 completed sanctions in the 4 weeks to 13 weeks sanction duration band and 4,000 completed sanctions in the over 26 weeks sanction duration

For further information about how the rate is calculated, please see the UC background information and methodology document.

2. What you need to know

UC live service data has been frozen to April 2019, when, the systems that were used to administer live service cases were shut down. It has been decided to remove live service decisions, reasons and destinations from the current and future statistical releases. Releases published before May 2024 will contain the frozen data for UC live service. UC live service data is included in the rate and duration statistics.

In recent months, more than 70% of claimants included in the sanction decisions measure have now provided their ethnicity.  As a result of this threshold being reached, statistics on sanction decisions and ethnicity will be available within this publication from the August 2024 release.

The level of ethnicity declarations for those claimants included within the sanction rate measure, and other measures, has not yet reached the minimum level of 70% in any month, so ethnicity breakdowns of the sanction rate will not be available in August 2024. We will continue to monitor the level of ethnicity declarations in relation to the sanction rate, and other measures with the goal of publishing statistics on sanction rate and ethnicity once the 70% threshold is reached. The regular sanction rate data will still be available.

Please see Universal Credit statistics for more information on the threshold.

The data in this publication is the latest available for statistics on sanctions for UC. Statistics are available from:

• May 2016 to January 2024 for UC full service adverse sanction decisions

• January 2017 to February 2024 for UC full service and live service rate, and sanction durations

Users can also:

• produce their own tables and access demographic breakdowns using Stat-Xplore. Please see the Stat-Xplore-User-Guide for generating tables on Stat-Xplore

• access the supporting data tables that accompany each release of statistics

Claimants are required to meet agreed conditions to be eligible for Universal Credit. If a claimant does not meet one or more conditions of their benefit claim without good reason, their benefit could be stopped or reduced. This is a benefit sanction. However, not everyone that is initially referred for failing to meet the conditions of their claim will receive a sanction. Where a claimant’s benefit is reduced, the claimant may be eligible for a hardship payment.

Statistics regarding Universal Credit (UC) rate and duration cover both UC live and full service.

The sanction rate measures the number of claimants undergoing a sanction on the second Thursday of the reference month (the count date) divided by the number of UC claimants in conditionality regimes where sanctions can be applied. This is different to the data on sanction decisions, which uses the total number of decisions across a whole month. Further information on definitions is provided in the About these statistics section and within the background and methodology documents.

Statistics covered in this bulletin include data for sanction decisions during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Due to legislative changes to disapply work-search and work availability requirements between 30 March 2020 and 30 June 2020 (in response to the pandemic), comparisons during the COVID-19 pandemic should not be made to other times.

At the beginning of the pandemic, conditionality was paused for UC claimants and face to face appointments were suspended, to enable the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to focus on processing the unprecedented volume of new claims. While DWP reintroduced conditionality in July 2020, face to face appointments were gradually reintroduced from April 2021 for all claimants. As the return to face to face appointments was a gradual process and claimants were only subject to sanction when they failed to meet a mandatory requirement, there is a delay between the start of the return to face to face appointments in April 2021 and the increase in the UC sanction rate in June 2021.

Conditionality was reintroduced from 1 July 2020 on a phased approach and as capacity allowed.

Further information about the sanctions process and source of these statistics can be found in the background information and guidance documents.

3. Sanction rates and conditionality

For further information on the current methodology, see the background and methodology documents.

3.1 Benefit sanction rates

The sanction rate measures the number of claimants undergoing a sanction on the second Thursday of the reference month (the count date) divided by the number of UC claimants in conditionality regimes where sanctions can be applied.

The sanction rate covers both UC live and full service. The timeseries is extended back to January 2017, the earliest point at which the data for UC live and full service was fully available. Please see the background and methodology document for more information.

The UC sanction rate in February 2024 was 6.52%

UC claimants undergoing a sanction, as a proportion of UC claimants in conditionality regimes where sanctions can be applied, at a point in time, January 2017 to February 2024

Source: Benefit Sanction statistics data tables

The number of claimants in conditionality regimes is counted at a specific point in time, the second Thursday of the month. As such it is possible for a claimant to be in a conditionality regime where sanctions can be applied and receive a sanction, before moving to a conditionality regime where sanctions cannot be applied before the count date. The sanction would appear in the numerator for the rate calculation, while the claimant would not appear in the denominator.

In the latest month February 2024, the sanction rate was 6.52%, this is down by 0.64 percentage points from November 2023 and is down by 0.32 percentage points compared to 12 months ago. The UC sanction rate was at its peak of 11.83% in January 2017 which is the start of the available time series. The time series covers data from January 2017 to February 2024.

From this peak we see notable dips leading to a decline of the rate to 2.51% in March 2020. At this time there was a sharp downwards trend, which coincided with an increase to the UC caseload during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sanction rate remained low until June 2021, when it began to rise following the return to face-to-face appointments in April 2021.

 The rate steadily rose from May 2021 till June 2022 and has since remained between 6% and 8%. As of February 2024, the rate was 6.52%.

For a complete description of what has changed in the methodology refer to the background and methodology documents.

3.2 Conditionality

Not all UC claimants are in conditionality regimes where sanctions can be applied. Those where sanctions can be applied are the “searching for work”, “planning for work”, “preparing for work” or “unknown” conditionality regimes.

The number of claimants in conditionality regimes where sanctions can be applied was 1.95 million in February 2024

UC claimants in conditionality regimes where sanctions can be applied, at a point in time, January 2017 to February 2024

Source: Benefit Sanction statistics data tables

From January 2017, the number of UC claimants who were in conditionality regimes where sanctions can be applied increased gradually until March 2020, when it spiked between March 2020 and May 2020 by 97%. Between May 2020 and May 2021 there were over 2.5 million UC claimants in conditionality regimes where sanctions can be applied, reaching the highest point in March 2021 (2.72 million). From April 2021 we saw an overall steady decline until May 2022, after which the number of claimants in conditionality regimes where sanctions can be applied have remained largely stable. In February 2024, the number of UC claimants in conditionality regimes where sanctions can be applied was at 1.95 million.

The percentage of claimants in conditionality regimes where sanctions can be applied was 30.1% in February 2024

Percentage of UC in conditionality regimes where sanctions can be applied, at a point in time, January 2017 to February 2024

Source: Benefit Sanction statistics data tables

Over the course of the roll-out of UC, the balance of individuals subject to sanction as a proportion of the caseload has varied.

 The percentage of claimants in conditionality regimes where sanctions can be applied was highest in March 2017 at 64.8%. It steadily declined to 44.7% in March 2020, just prior to changes made to work requirements as a result of COVID-19 pandemic. From here, the percentage of claimants in conditionality regimes where sanctions can be applied temporarily increased to 50.0% in April 2020 and 50.4% in May 2020, coinciding with an increase to the UC caseload during the COVID-19 pandemic. There was some decline to 32% in July 2023, and has now remained stable between 30% and 32%. In February 2024, 30.1% of UC claimants were in conditionality regimes where sanctions can be applied.

4. Sanction decisions and reasons

Claimants will continue to migrate from Legacy Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) onto UC full service or New Style JSA and ESA until legacy benefits have ceased. As of April 2019, 100% of UC live service claimants transferred onto full service.

Data for numbers of original adverse sanction decisions has been included from May 2016, for UC full service. This is because prior to this time, UC full service was only being implemented as a trial in a small area of the UK only (Sutton, Southwark, Croydon, Hounslow and Musselburgh). More information about this is available in our UC background information and methodology document.

It should be noted that references to UC full service adverse sanction decisions describe original, adverse sanction decisions only. We are currently unable to provide statistics on original non-adverse, reserved or cancelled sanction decisions, as this information is not captured on the administrative system.

4.1 UC full service: Adverse sanction decisions and reasons

The number of adverse sanction decisions was 57,000 in January 2024

UC full service adverse sanction decisions by month, May 2016 to January 2024

Source: Benefit Sanction statistics data tables

The number of adverse sanction decisions has shown an overall increase from January 2023 to January 2024.

In January 2024 there were 57,000 original adverse sanction decisions made for UC full service. The numbers of adverse sanction decisions reached a pre-pandemic peak in July 2019 (23,000) after following an upward trend as UC full service was rolled out and the UC caseload built up. In March 2020 the number of adverse sanction decisions decreased to 11,000. The number of adverse sanction decisions continued to drop following the legislative changes to work requirements on 30 March 2020 (in response to the COVID-19 pandemic), falling to 0 adverse sanction decisions in July 2020.

In August 2020, the number of UC full service adverse sanction decisions began to gradually increase until May 2021, where they reached 1,700. Face to face appointments were reintroduced from April 2021. From June 2021, a much larger increase was observed, continuing until November 2021, where they reached 38,000. Adverse sanction increased to a peak of 59,000 in March 2022, and have since fluctuated between this and 27,000 observed in December 2023. The number of adverse sanction decisions increased to 57,000 in January 2024.

Summary of original UCFS adverse sanction decision reasons from February 2023 to January 2024

Original adverse sanction decisions made by reason group	Latest Year	Latest Year (%)	Latest Quarter	Latest Quarter (%)
Failure to Attend or Participate in a Mandatory Interview	519,910	94.9	125,600	93.4
Availability for Work	11,840	2.2	4,030	3.0
Employment Programmes	9,610	1.8	2,820	2.1
Reasons for Leaving Previous Employment	5,510	1.0	1,700	1.3
Other	1,080	0.2	340	0.3
Total	547,960	100.0	134,490	100.0

Notes

1. Note that these are original, adverse sanction decisions, not all decisions as with other benefits.

2. Disclosure control has been applied to this data for confidentiality purposes. Due to this, totals may not be the sum of the individual data breakdown.

3. For a full breakdown of the adverse sanction decision reasons, see the methodology document.

4. Please note that in previously published statistics, mandatory interviews were referred to as Work-Focused Interviews.

Failure to attend or participate in a mandatory interview accounted for 94.9% of all adverse sanction decisions in the last year. Availability for Work was the next most common adverse sanction reason, accounting for 2.2% of adverse sanction decisions in the last year, followed closely by Employment Programmes which accounts for 1.8% of adverse decisions in the last year.

5. Benefit sanction durations

Statistics regarding Universal Credit (UC) rate and duration cover both UC live and full service.

The sanction rate and the durations calculations are measured differently. The sanction rate is measured at a point in time (second Thursday of the month) to give an indication of how many people are undergoing a sanction at the given count date. Whereas sanction durations show the length of sanctions that have completed in the month they ended.

The improved durations methodology measures each sanction individually without breaking it if the sanction does not cause a payment reduction. For a complete description of what has changed in the methodology and the data limitations, refer to the background and methodology documents.

5.1 UC: Length of completed sanctions

There were 20,000 completed sanctions in the ‘over 4 weeks to 13 weeks’ duration band in February 2024

The number of completed sanctions by sanction duration bands, January 2017 to February 2024

Source: Benefit Sanction statistics data tables

The graph shows that, in each month since July 2021, the largest number of completed sanctions is in the over 4 weeks to 13 weeks band.

 In February 2024 there were 20,000 completed sanctions for a duration of over 4 weeks to 13 weeks. Since April 2022 the overall trend for this sanction duration band has been broadly flat, although numbers have fluctuated between a low of 17,400 (February 2023) and a high of 23,400 (October 2023).

The number of completed sanctions lasting under 4 weeks has been gradually increasing overall during the last 12 months. In February 2023 there were 10,200 completed sanctions increasing to 16,200 completed sanctions in February 2024.

The over 13 weeks to 26 weeks and over 26 weeks bands have been relatively stable over the last 12 months at broadly similar levels. The over 13 weeks to 26 has 4,800 completed sanctions in February 2024 compared with 4,400 in February 2023. The over 26 weeks band has 4,000 completed sanctions in February 2024 compared with 3,700 in February 2023.

There are a higher number of completed sanctions in all the sanction duration bands the months after the COVID-19 pandemic than the months before the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this should be considered alongside the number of claimants on UC in conditionality regimes where sanctions can be applied having increased over the period. (Please see section 3.2 Conditionality).

Between April 2020 and May 2021 (during the COVID-19 pandemic) there was a reduction in the number of completed sanctions in each month, reducing to less than 1,000 completed sanctions in each month between August 2020 and May 2021. The reduction in completed sanctions during this period was due to the legislative changes to work requirements on 30 March 2020 (in response to the COVID-19 pandemic).

Sanctions with a duration over 26 weeks accounted for, at most, 11.5% of all completed sanctions in the latest quarter, (December 2023 to February 2024)

The number of completed sanctions by sanction duration bands, January 2017 to February 2024

Source: Benefit Sanction statistics data tables

Of the 45,100 completed sanctions February 2024, 9.0% were of a duration of over 26 weeks (4,000 completed sanctions). The proportion has fluctuated between 8.7% and 11.5% over the last 12 months.

There were 80.3% of completed sanctions in February 2024 in either the 4 weeks and under (16,200 completed sanctions) and over 4 weeks to 13 weeks (20,000) bands. This has increased from 77.2% in February 2023 when there were 10,200 completed sanctions in the 4 weeks and under band and 17,400 in the over 4 weeks to 13 weeks band out of a total of 35,700 completed sanctions.

In the period April 2020 to June 2021 (during the COVID-19 pandemic) there was an increase in the proportion of completed sanctions that were over 26 weeks (from 8.0% in March 2020 to a high of 85.1% in September 2020). During this period there were legislative changes to work requirements on 30 March 2020 (in response to the COVID-19 pandemic) which meant most completed sanctions during the period were for sanctions already in place before the pandemic.

6. Sanction destinations

It has been decided to remove UC live service decisions, reasons and destinations from the current and future statistical releases, as the UC live service data has been frozen. Releases published before May 2024 will contain the frozen data for UC live service.

7. About these statistics

Figures in this bulletin are rounded in accordance with the DWP rounding policy for statistics, details of which can be found in the “Rounding” section of the background information and methodology document. Unrounded figures from the underlying data available on Stat-Xplore or in accompanying tables may not sum exactly to the rounded totals accordingly.

Interpretation of data and the sanction process

Care must be taken when interpreting the duration charts and figures as, for fair comparisons, sufficient time must have passed before longer duration categories can be achieved. These statistics include those sanctions which subsequently go on to be overturned. Claimants whose sanction is overturned will be repaid any deduction. When a claimant leaves benefit following a sanction start, but before the sanction is served, the claim end date is taken to be the sanction end date. In the cases where a sanction end date is the same date as the sanction start, these small number of cases are still counted as a sanction applied.

Other National and Official Statistics

Read about other National and Official Statistics produced by DWP.

Users can also find further information about the sanctions process, source of these statistics and the publication rounding policy in the background information and methodology documents.

Changes, revisions and known issues

The following information is about changes, revisions and known issues with the statistics.

Following a review of the methodology for UC sanction rates and durations, sanction rate data between January 2017 and April 2019 has been re-introduced as of February 2024 release, alongside an improved methodology. For further information on the methodological improvement, see the background and methodology documents.

Statistics covered in this bulletin include data for sanction decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although legislative changes to disapply work-search and work availability requirements were effective between 30 March 2020 and 30 June 2020 (in response to the pandemic), some sanction decisions for these types of failures could have been made during this time period. This is because decisions are often made and processed after the date that the claimant failure occurred. This means that it was possible for sanction decisions to be recorded after legislation changes came into effect, in instances where a claimant prior to 30 March 2020 has failed to meet the work requirements set out in their claimant commitment. Additionally, sanction decisions were also possible for some failures which occurred after this date, for example, for leaving a job voluntarily without good reason or for misconduct.

Conditionality was reintroduced from 1 July 2020 on a phased approach and as capacity allowed.

This impacts data for UC and JSA sanctions.

Figures for UC full service adverse sanction decisions, UC live service decisions and destinations (now frozen and no longer reported), and all legacy benefit measures (no longer reported on) are unaffected by this.

Due to the availability of some data on UC live service it has not been possible to apply the UC rate and durations improved methodology to UC sanctions before January 2017. Therefore, statistics are only presented from January 2017. See the background and methodology documents for further information.

Related statistics

Benefit Combination Statistics are included as part of the quarterly DWP benefits statistics collection, and allow users to view the combinations of benefits that people claim at a point in time for almost all benefits administered by DWP. The latest commentary release published on 13 February 2024 included Personal Independent Payment (PIP), Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and Attendance Allowance (AA) award levels for the first time.  The Statistical release is updated every six months in February and August while the underlying data is updated every quarter (February, May, August and November) and can be found on Stat-Xplore.

Definitions

UC full service

Full service is the digital system that administers Universal Credit for the full range of claimant groups. It was gradually introduced to Jobcentres from 2016 and was available in every Jobcentre (including Northern Ireland) by December 2018. It is worth noting that whilst UC full service is available in Northern Ireland, these statistics exclude these cases.

At present, we only hold data on original, adverse sanction decisions for claimants on UC full service and cannot differentiate between non-adverse, reserved and cancelled outcomes. Prior to May 2016, UC full service was being implemented as a trial in a small area of the UK only (Sutton, Southwark, Croydon, Hounslow and Musselburgh) so data on original, adverse sanction decisions is included from May 2016 onwards.

UC live service

The original service administrating Universal Credit. It was gradually introduced to Jobcentres from 2013 and was available in every Jobcentre (excluding Northern Ireland) by May 2016. All claimants were moved to full service by April 2019.

New claims to UC live service ceased in January 2018, and since then the remaining live service cases have been gradually migrated to UC full service. This has resulted in a gradual decrease in the number of live service sanction decisions. By 1 April 2019, the systems that were used to administer live service cases were shut down. Due to this, data for any original UC live service sanction decisions has been frozen from this point.

Sanction decisions

A claimant can be subject to sanction when they do not meet a condition of their benefit. The Decision Maker looks at the available information about the claimant and their referral and decides on an outcome. The decision made can be:

• Adverse – they decide to sanction the claimant

• Non-Adverse – they decide not to sanction the claimant

• Cancelled – they decide that the referral was not appropriate and cancel it

Within this publication, we refer to all of these outcomes as decisions. Many sanction decisions can be made during the course of a claim where the claimant has failed to meet the conditions of their benefit claim more than once.

Sanction stages

Each UC live service decision can have a maximum of 4 stages, beginning with the Original Decision made by a Decision Maker. If the claimant does not agree that their benefit should be reduced, they may request a Decision Review, Mandatory Reconsideration, and Appeal. UC full service has a maximum of 3 stages as there is no Decision Review.

In the statistics, only the latest decision is kept, meaning that any previous decisions for each sanction referral are updated with every publication.

Sanction durations

We count the length of time that each claimant is undergoing a sanction and calculate the median duration of all sanctioned claimants.

The median is the middle number when all of the sanction lengths have been arranged from smallest to largest. Durations are counted up to and including the last month in which a sanction is applied. The underlying figures can be found in the supporting tables that accompany each release of statistics.

Sanction rate

For UC, the rate is calculated by dividing the number of claimants undergoing a sanction by the number of UC claimants who are in conditionality regimes where sanctions can be applied, at a point in time. The conditionality regimes where sanctions can be applied are:

• searching for work

• planning for work

• preparing for work

• unknown

These figures are calculated differently to the decisions figures, which are based on the number of decisions made in a full month. The underlying figures can be found in the supporting tables that accompany each release of statistics.

Destinations

We track what happens to claimants after they receive an original, adverse sanction decision. The figures show the amount of time spent on different working age benefits (UC, JSA, ESA (WRAG) and IS) in the 180-day period following the decision.  In addition, we have developed statistics to show who has had a period of earnings after their sanction. Further information can be found in the destinations methodology document.

Further information can be found in the destinations methodology document.

Contact information and feedback

Authors: James Gray, Sophie Martin, Temi Olubajo, Craig Mejury and Stephen Slater

Lead Statistician: Tracy Hills

For more information on sanction statistics, contact the Employment Programmes and Sanction Statistics team at epass.team@dwp.gov.uk.

DWP would like to hear your views on our statistical publications. If you use any of these statistics publications, we would be interested in hearing what you use them for and how well they meet your requirements. Please email DWP at epass.team@dwp.gov.uk.

Users can also join the “Welfare and Benefit Statistics” community at StatsUserNet. DWP announces items of interest to users via this forum, as well as replying to users’ questions.

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