More jobseekers in Dundee have had their benefits suspended over the past year than those from anywhere else in Scotland.
Figures released by the Department for Work and Pensions show 2,420 people from Dundee had their Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) payments stopped temporarily for not doing enough to find work, turning down jobs offered to them or failing to turn up for appointments.
People across the UK have had their benefit payments suspended 580,000 times since tougher rules were introduced in October last year.
The UK Government claims the stricter enforcement of penalties teaches people without work about the responsibilities of having a job, although Citizen’s Advice claims penalising claimants will make it even harder for them to find a job.
Although Dundee JobCentre had the highest number of sanctions of any JobCentre in Scotland, it is the only JobCentre in the city and so deals with a higher volume of claimants than many other centres.
In Arbroath, benefits were suspended 520 times, while there were 200 sanctions in Forfar, 380 in Montrose and 710 in Perth.
There were 980 suspensions in Alloa, 1,110 in Dunfermline, 650 in Leven, 60 in St Andrews and 960 in Stirling.
The most common reason for a sanction (36%) was the claimant not actively seeking work.
A further 30% of those sanctioned were because claimants failed to participate in employment programmes designed to help people back to work and 20% were sanctioned because they did not have a good reason for missing a meeting at the Jobcentre.
UK Government employment minister Esther McVey said: “This Government has always been clear that in return for claiming unemployment benefits, jobseekers have a responsibility to do everything they can to get back into work.
“We are ending the something-for-nothing culture. People who are in a job know if they don’t play by the rules or fail to turn up in the morning, there might be consequences, so it’s only right people on benefits should have similar responsibilities.
“We always make the rules very clear it’s only right there is a penalty if people fail to play by them.”
People who consistently flout the rules can lose their benefits for up to three years.
People who are deemed not be looking for work can lose their benefits for four weeks for the first incident, rising to 13 weeks for a second or subsequent failures.
Lower level sanctions, such as failing to attend an adviser interview, will lead to claimants losing all of their JSA for a fixed period of four weeks for the first failure, followed by 13 weeks for subsequent failures.
All sanctions are imposed by an independent decision maker and claimants have a right to appeal.
Citizens Advice Scotland chief executive Margaret Lynch said: “These figures show more and more people are suffering loss of benefits.
“But at the CAB, we see a large number of cases where people have been sanctioned unfairly but often for reasons which are, in fact, the fault of the Jobcentre itself.
“For example, people who have been sanctioned for missing appointments they hadn’t been told about.
“If you are relying on benefits as your only source of income, life is hard enough. But to then lose scarce income altogether often for a period of months is simply devastating.”