In 2024, the median court fine was £283, while the average sanction for a claimant aged 25 or over amounted to £524.
Universal Credit sanctions, deductions applied to a claimant’s payment when the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) decides they have not met work-related requirements, were in the news this week.
New research from the Central England Law Centre (CELC) and the Public Law Project (PLP) suggests that in addition to being harmful, counterproductive and disproportionate, many sanctions are being imposed inappropriately.
The report found that sanctioned individuals typically lose 100 percent of their standard allowance for anywhere between one week and six months, penalties often more severe than the average fine handed down by the criminal courts.
In 2024, the median court fine was £283, while the average sanction for a claimant aged 25 or over amounted to £524.
Meanwhile, 89 percent of sanction cases that reached appeal were overturned in favour of the claimant, suggesting sanctions are routinely imposed inappropriately. Because these errors are only corrected at the final appeal stage, they impose substantial costs on individuals, and, presumably, on the DWP itself.
The researchers also identified people being sanctioned not for repeated non-engagement but for first-time “failures,” often arising from circumstances outside their control, such as digital exclusion, language barriers and unexpected health crises.
Participants reported that sanctions pushed them into relying on food banks, taking on debt and experiencing significant strain on their physical and mental health, factors that ultimately made it harder to search for and sustain employment. While sanctions are frequently issued for relatively minor “failings,” the consequences are severe. Between February 2024 and April 2025, 90.8 percent of sanctions were imposed for missing or being late to an interview with a work coach.
The report recommends that the current sanction regime be revoked entirely. However, if sanctions remain, it calls for fundamental reform, including improved access to appeals, stronger safeguards before decisions are made, measures to prevent sanctions where possible, the use of sanctions only in exceptional circumstances after clear warnings, and action to address the disproportionate severity of penalties.
Writing in Politics Home, Baroness Lister, professor of social policy at Loughborough University, calls on sanctions to be “reformed once and for all.”
“Sanctions should not lead to struggle, be that financial, mental or otherwise,” she writes.
“The government has committed to reviewing Universal Credit to “take stock of [its] core structures and policies” so that it contributes to its objective of tackling poverty and making work pay. That review can and should include a review of the current sanctions regime.”
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